Well, I’ve finally done it: posted both parts of January Magazine’s “Best Books of 2012” crime-fiction coverage. Click here to read all of Part I; Part II can be found here.
This year January’s critics selected 30 novels for particular bepraisement, from Declan Burke’s Absolute Zero Cool and Tana French’s Broken Harbor to Don Winslow’s The Kings of Cool, Robert Rotenberg’s Stray Bullets, and Lyndsay Faye’s The Gods of Gotham. These books were released over the last 12 months in the Unites States, Britain,and Canada. Reading through the selections, it’s clear that the crime, mystery, and thriller genre offers a considerable range of storytelling and deserves its current popularity.
So, do you think we missed praising any crime novels? Please feel free to make your own “best of the year” recommendations in the Comments section of this post.
Sunday, December 30, 2012
Saturday, December 29, 2012
The Story Behind the Story:
“A Bitter Veil,” by Libby Fischer Hellmann
(Editor’s note: In this 40th installment of The Rap Sheet’s “Story Behind the Story” series, we welcome Libby Fischer Hellmann, a Chicago author with several books to her credit, including Set the Night on Fire [2010] and Easy Innocence [2008]. Below, she recalls the development of her latest novel, A Bitter Veil 
[Allium Press], which tells of a young student in Chicago, Anna, who falls in love with an Iranian man, Nouri, and subsequently moves back with him to his native Tehran in 1978--not long before the overthrow of Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi and the rise of the Islamic Republic.)
So there I was at Bouchercon a few years ago. I had just finished my sixth novel and an author friend asked, “What are you going to write now?”
I had no idea. I told him I liked writing about women whose choices have been taken away from them. Who have run out of options. How do they survive without becoming victims? Is it even possible for them to prevail?
As we chatted, a memory swam up into my consciousness. A few years earlier, I’d gone to a high-school reunion. I’d published a few novels by then, and one of my former classmates approached and said that she wanted to tell me her “story.” Like most writers, I’m a sucker for a story, so we grabbed a glass of wine and went into a corner.
She proceeded to tell me how she’d fallen in love after college with an Iranian student. They married and she moved with him to Tehran. Four months later the Shah was deposed, and her life went from wonderful to acceptable, from acceptable to mediocre, difficult, and finally intolerable. After a year or so she was able to flee Iran, returned to the States, and got a divorce.
Now I told my author friend at Bouchercon about my classmate. He promptly suggested I write about her experience.
“I can’t,” I said. “It’s not fiction, and there was no crime.”
He cocked his head and looked at me as if I were a little strange. “You write crime fiction. Find one.”
I took his advice.
However, not experiencing Iran first-hand was problematic too. How could I capture the setting accurately? The culture? The struggle that erupted when a religious revolution was foisted on a previously (mostly) secular society? Perhaps, I reasoned, the story was better left untold. After all, there already are plenty of books--both fiction and non-fiction--written about that period. Indeed, I’ve included a list of some at the end of A Bitter Veil.
But the story wouldn’t leave me alone. After much internal debate, I decided I wouldn’t write the book unless I did enough research to feel comfortable with the evolution, conflicts, and issues of the Islamic Revolution.
Fortunately I’m a former history major. Not only do I love research, but I have always been captivated by the past and how we bend it, learn from it, or ignore it at our peril. And Iran’s Islamic Revolution was one of the most well-covered revolutions in history. It was easy to find chronologies, books, articles, and reactions. I read nearly 20 books on the subject, both fiction and non-fiction. I took notes, read more, watched films, examined photos. A factor in my favor was that the revolution was relatively recent. Many of us remember TV news footage of the Shah piloting his plane out of Iran, followed by the triumphant return from exile of the Ayatollah Khomeini a few weeks later. It was not difficult to find materials.
I also put the word out that I was looking for Iranian Americans who’d lived in Iran during the early years of the revolution. Within weeks I found five people willing to talk to me. Some warned me not to be too critical; others not too gentle. One told me such a harrowing story that some of her history ended up in the book. As you might expect, none of these people wanted their names made public.
After sifting through what I’d learned, I decided I might be able to write the novel after all. The first 50 pages take place in Chicago, so that section wasn’t difficult. Once I moved the couple to Tehran, it became more challenging, but whenever I had questions, I did more research. For example, it turns out that my female protagonist buys two chadors. I discovered a chador shop in Tehran, read about chadors and their headpieces, and incorporated the information into the tale.
When I finished a draft, I sent it to one of the five Iranian Americans I’d interviewed. She vetted the entire manuscript and told me where I’d gone astray. I made revisions. Then I sent it to my editor, who sent it to a second Iranian American for further checking. Finally, when producing the audio version of my story, we checked with yet another person for the proper pronunciation of Farsi phrases.
I was comforted by the thought that I was writing about the era as seen through the eyes of an American woman. What she observed was in large measure what I learned during my research. Some of it was beautiful--for example, the sheer magnificence of the Persian culture. Some of it, less so. In all cases, though, I tried to be faithful to the research.
What triggers more conflict than a revolution? Whether it’s the French, Russian, Cuban, or Chinese revolutions, or what we’re now calling the Arab Spring, nothing shakes the foundations of a society more than internal conflict. That kind of conflict turns some people into heroes, others into cowards. The most satisfying part of writing for me is placing a character in the middle of such a conflict and seeing how he or she behaves.
That happened in A Bitter Veil. Some characters did what I thought they would, but others surprised me with their actions. In fact, I thought I knew who the culprit was when I began the book. But that changed several times during the writing, and it wasn’t until the climax that the perpetrator was unmasked. I hope readers will be as surprised as I was.
The conflict triggered by the Islamic Revolution manifested itself in a non-pluralistic way, as well. Through my research I learned that Persia had been invaded many times over the centuries. However, Persia’s invaders always tended to assimilate the Persian culture rather than imposing their own on Persia. In some cases, the invaders even allowed the Persians to retain a semblance of autonomy. That didn’t happen this time. Iranian customs, culture, and politics changed dramatically.
Why? Was it because the revolutionaries were insurgents, not foreign invaders? Was it because there was no choice--Iranians were required to “assimilate” the new republic’s dictums? I’m not sure, and it was a compelling question--one which I ultimately had to leave open.
I finished the book, recorded the audio, planned my promotional campaign. I had decided early on not to use my high-school classmate as a source, so she knew nothing about the book. When it was done, though, I chose to dedicate the book to her if she agreed. It took almost six weeks for us to connect because she was traveling, but when we finally did, I said,
“Hi. You remember the story you told me about moving to Iran?”
“Iran?” She said. “It wasn’t Iran.”
“Of course it was,” I said. “You fell in love, you got married and moved to Tehran. When it became impossible, you came home.”
“No.” She corrected me. “It wasn’t Iran--it was India.”
“But ... but ...” I sputtered. India?? She’d gone to India, not Iran? How had I screwed that up?
“I can’t believe this,” I said. “I just finished writing a novel about Iran. And it all began with you!”
“Actually, I do believe it,” she said. “I moved to the Punjab area of India, which is predominantly Muslim. The Shiites in India tended to follow and do what Iranian Shiites did. The same customs, the same restrictions. So don’t feel badly; it was a similar situation.”
But of course, I did. Feel badly, that is. I spent a couple of days shame-faced and embarrassed. After a while, though, I realized it didn’t matter. Clearly, it was a subconscious error. I’d written the story I was supposed to write. A Bitter Veil is that story.
[Allium Press], which tells of a young student in Chicago, Anna, who falls in love with an Iranian man, Nouri, and subsequently moves back with him to his native Tehran in 1978--not long before the overthrow of Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi and the rise of the Islamic Republic.)So there I was at Bouchercon a few years ago. I had just finished my sixth novel and an author friend asked, “What are you going to write now?”
I had no idea. I told him I liked writing about women whose choices have been taken away from them. Who have run out of options. How do they survive without becoming victims? Is it even possible for them to prevail?
As we chatted, a memory swam up into my consciousness. A few years earlier, I’d gone to a high-school reunion. I’d published a few novels by then, and one of my former classmates approached and said that she wanted to tell me her “story.” Like most writers, I’m a sucker for a story, so we grabbed a glass of wine and went into a corner.
She proceeded to tell me how she’d fallen in love after college with an Iranian student. They married and she moved with him to Tehran. Four months later the Shah was deposed, and her life went from wonderful to acceptable, from acceptable to mediocre, difficult, and finally intolerable. After a year or so she was able to flee Iran, returned to the States, and got a divorce.
Now I told my author friend at Bouchercon about my classmate. He promptly suggested I write about her experience.
“I can’t,” I said. “It’s not fiction, and there was no crime.”
He cocked his head and looked at me as if I were a little strange. “You write crime fiction. Find one.”
I took his advice.
* * *
I began by doing research. Usually I’m the type of writer who believes in field trips. I’ve gone to Douglas, Arizona; Lake Geneva, Wisconsin; neighborhoods in Chicago I would never visit alone; even Cuba. But I couldn’t go to Iran. It was--and is--unsafe for an American woman, particularly a Jewish-American woman. I would have been questioning and interviewing people about a delicate time in their country’s history.
It’s possible some people might have gotten the wrong idea. It’s possible I’d have
been stopped, even apprehended. So a trip was out of the question.However, not experiencing Iran first-hand was problematic too. How could I capture the setting accurately? The culture? The struggle that erupted when a religious revolution was foisted on a previously (mostly) secular society? Perhaps, I reasoned, the story was better left untold. After all, there already are plenty of books--both fiction and non-fiction--written about that period. Indeed, I’ve included a list of some at the end of A Bitter Veil.
But the story wouldn’t leave me alone. After much internal debate, I decided I wouldn’t write the book unless I did enough research to feel comfortable with the evolution, conflicts, and issues of the Islamic Revolution.
Fortunately I’m a former history major. Not only do I love research, but I have always been captivated by the past and how we bend it, learn from it, or ignore it at our peril. And Iran’s Islamic Revolution was one of the most well-covered revolutions in history. It was easy to find chronologies, books, articles, and reactions. I read nearly 20 books on the subject, both fiction and non-fiction. I took notes, read more, watched films, examined photos. A factor in my favor was that the revolution was relatively recent. Many of us remember TV news footage of the Shah piloting his plane out of Iran, followed by the triumphant return from exile of the Ayatollah Khomeini a few weeks later. It was not difficult to find materials.
I also put the word out that I was looking for Iranian Americans who’d lived in Iran during the early years of the revolution. Within weeks I found five people willing to talk to me. Some warned me not to be too critical; others not too gentle. One told me such a harrowing story that some of her history ended up in the book. As you might expect, none of these people wanted their names made public.
After sifting through what I’d learned, I decided I might be able to write the novel after all. The first 50 pages take place in Chicago, so that section wasn’t difficult. Once I moved the couple to Tehran, it became more challenging, but whenever I had questions, I did more research. For example, it turns out that my female protagonist buys two chadors. I discovered a chador shop in Tehran, read about chadors and their headpieces, and incorporated the information into the tale.
When I finished a draft, I sent it to one of the five Iranian Americans I’d interviewed. She vetted the entire manuscript and told me where I’d gone astray. I made revisions. Then I sent it to my editor, who sent it to a second Iranian American for further checking. Finally, when producing the audio version of my story, we checked with yet another person for the proper pronunciation of Farsi phrases.
I was comforted by the thought that I was writing about the era as seen through the eyes of an American woman. What she observed was in large measure what I learned during my research. Some of it was beautiful--for example, the sheer magnificence of the Persian culture. Some of it, less so. In all cases, though, I tried to be faithful to the research.
* * *
There’s one more component to the back-story that made writing A Bitter Veil irresistible. As crime writers, we learn early that “conflict” is the most essential ingredient in fiction. We learn that there must be conflict on every page, even if a character just wants a glass of water and can’t get it.What triggers more conflict than a revolution? Whether it’s the French, Russian, Cuban, or Chinese revolutions, or what we’re now calling the Arab Spring, nothing shakes the foundations of a society more than internal conflict. That kind of conflict turns some people into heroes, others into cowards. The most satisfying part of writing for me is placing a character in the middle of such a conflict and seeing how he or she behaves.
That happened in A Bitter Veil. Some characters did what I thought they would, but others surprised me with their actions. In fact, I thought I knew who the culprit was when I began the book. But that changed several times during the writing, and it wasn’t until the climax that the perpetrator was unmasked. I hope readers will be as surprised as I was.
The conflict triggered by the Islamic Revolution manifested itself in a non-pluralistic way, as well. Through my research I learned that Persia had been invaded many times over the centuries. However, Persia’s invaders always tended to assimilate the Persian culture rather than imposing their own on Persia. In some cases, the invaders even allowed the Persians to retain a semblance of autonomy. That didn’t happen this time. Iranian customs, culture, and politics changed dramatically.
Why? Was it because the revolutionaries were insurgents, not foreign invaders? Was it because there was no choice--Iranians were required to “assimilate” the new republic’s dictums? I’m not sure, and it was a compelling question--one which I ultimately had to leave open.
* * *
Now for the punch line.I finished the book, recorded the audio, planned my promotional campaign. I had decided early on not to use my high-school classmate as a source, so she knew nothing about the book. When it was done, though, I chose to dedicate the book to her if she agreed. It took almost six weeks for us to connect because she was traveling, but when we finally did, I said,
“Hi. You remember the story you told me about moving to Iran?”
“Iran?” She said. “It wasn’t Iran.”
“Of course it was,” I said. “You fell in love, you got married and moved to Tehran. When it became impossible, you came home.”
“No.” She corrected me. “It wasn’t Iran--it was India.”
“But ... but ...” I sputtered. India?? She’d gone to India, not Iran? How had I screwed that up?
“I can’t believe this,” I said. “I just finished writing a novel about Iran. And it all began with you!”
“Actually, I do believe it,” she said. “I moved to the Punjab area of India, which is predominantly Muslim. The Shiites in India tended to follow and do what Iranian Shiites did. The same customs, the same restrictions. So don’t feel badly; it was a similar situation.”
But of course, I did. Feel badly, that is. I spent a couple of days shame-faced and embarrassed. After a while, though, I realized it didn’t matter. Clearly, it was a subconscious error. I’d written the story I was supposed to write. A Bitter Veil is that story.
The Rest of the Best
If everything goes according to plan, I will begin posting January Magazine’s Best Books of 2012 selections in the crime-fiction category sometime this afternoon. Meanwhile, though, there are several other best-of-the-year rundowns worth checking out.
British reviewer Sarah Ward reveals her top five crime-fiction reads here. Patrick Ohl of the blog At the Scene of the Crime has posted two lists of merit: his top 10 author discoveries of 2012 and his assessment of the new mysteries and thrillers he read this year. Publishers Weekly offers its dozen favorite new entries in the genre here. Curtis Evans--whose new non-fiction work about “humdrum” mystery writers I reviewed favorably a couple of months ago--includes 20 novels, new and vintage, on his Best Books Blogged list; click here for Part I, here for Part II, and here for Part III (with a “final five” post expected soon). Jen Forbus catalogues her favorite first lines and book covers here, and her favorite audiobooks of the year here. Finally, Ransom Notes columnist Jedidiah Ayres presents his tally of “favorite debut novels of 2012” here.
If you have spotted any more best-of-the-year crime-fiction wrap-ups on the Web, please let the rest of us know about them in the Comments section of this post.
British reviewer Sarah Ward reveals her top five crime-fiction reads here. Patrick Ohl of the blog At the Scene of the Crime has posted two lists of merit: his top 10 author discoveries of 2012 and his assessment of the new mysteries and thrillers he read this year. Publishers Weekly offers its dozen favorite new entries in the genre here. Curtis Evans--whose new non-fiction work about “humdrum” mystery writers I reviewed favorably a couple of months ago--includes 20 novels, new and vintage, on his Best Books Blogged list; click here for Part I, here for Part II, and here for Part III (with a “final five” post expected soon). Jen Forbus catalogues her favorite first lines and book covers here, and her favorite audiobooks of the year here. Finally, Ransom Notes columnist Jedidiah Ayres presents his tally of “favorite debut novels of 2012” here.
If you have spotted any more best-of-the-year crime-fiction wrap-ups on the Web, please let the rest of us know about them in the Comments section of this post.
Friday, December 28, 2012
Milestone for Milner
Actor Martin Milner, who portrayed peripatetic young Tod Stiles in the TV series Route 66, before teaming up with Kent McCord in the 1968-1975 cop drama Adam-12, turns 81 years old today.
Born in Detroit, Michigan, on this date in 1931, Milner lived part of his boyhood in Seattle, where he first took up acting. He subsequently moved with his family to Los Angeles, and in 1947 had his screen debut in Life with Father. His first TV role was in a 1950 episode of The Lone Ranger. Milner met actor (later director and producer) Jack Webb--who would cast him in Adam-12--in 1950 on the set of a Richard Widmark/Jack Palance World War II picture called Halls of Montezuma.
But military service interrupted his acting career after he celebrated his 21st birthday. Wikipedia explains,
Both IMDb and Wikipedia state that Milner’s final acting job was in a 1997 episode of Diagnosis: Murder titled “Murder Blues,” with him playing an LAPD detective. However, he co-hosted Let’s Talk Hook-up, a San Diego, California-based radio talk show about the wonders of fishing (one of his passions), from 1993 to 2004.
I hope that wherever Martin Milner is on this day at the very tail end of 2012, he’s enjoying the hell out of his retirement.
(Hat tip to Frederick Zackel.)
Born in Detroit, Michigan, on this date in 1931, Milner lived part of his boyhood in Seattle, where he first took up acting. He subsequently moved with his family to Los Angeles, and in 1947 had his screen debut in Life with Father. His first TV role was in a 1950 episode of The Lone Ranger. Milner met actor (later director and producer) Jack Webb--who would cast him in Adam-12--in 1950 on the set of a Richard Widmark/Jack Palance World War II picture called Halls of Montezuma.
But military service interrupted his acting career after he celebrated his 21st birthday. Wikipedia explains,
In 1952, Milner was drafted into the U.S. Army. In Special Services at Fort Ord on California's Monterey Bay peninsula, he directed training films and, with fellow actor/soldier David Janssen, emceed and performed in skits to entertain the soldiers. Milner and Janssen encouraged fellow soldier Clint Eastwood to pursue an acting career when his time in the Army ended. While in the Army, Milner continued working for Jack Webb, playing “Officer Bill Lockwood” (briefly the partner of “Sgt. Friday”) and other characters on the Dragnet radio series on weekends. He also appeared on six episodes of Webb’s Dragnet television series between 1952 and 1955.In addition to his performances on Route 66 and Adam-12, Milner starred (with a very young Helen Hunt) in the short-lived Irwin Allen small-screen series Swiss Family Robinson. He also did turns on Felony Squad, Police Story, and Murder, She Wrote. I remember Milner from the 1974 disaster teleflick Hurricane, in which he played a courageous pilot taking on a brutal storm, and he holds the distinction of having been the first murder victim in the regular run of Peter Falk’s Columbo, playing a successful mystery novelist in the September 15, 1971, episode, “Murder by the Book.”
Both IMDb and Wikipedia state that Milner’s final acting job was in a 1997 episode of Diagnosis: Murder titled “Murder Blues,” with him playing an LAPD detective. However, he co-hosted Let’s Talk Hook-up, a San Diego, California-based radio talk show about the wonders of fishing (one of his passions), from 1993 to 2004.
I hope that wherever Martin Milner is on this day at the very tail end of 2012, he’s enjoying the hell out of his retirement.
(Hat tip to Frederick Zackel.)
Wednesday, December 26, 2012
Bullet Points: The Day After Edition
• Even as I finish work on the crime-fiction section of January
Magazine’s “Best Books of 2012” feature package, other publications are posting their own favorite reads from the last twelvemonth. The
Miami Herald touts its preferences here, while you can look for Book Chase’s choices here, blogger Nick Jones’ here, author Heath Lowrance’s here, and CrimeFictionLover’s here. Oh, and a variety of well-known UK wordsmiths list their favorites in Pulp Pusher.
• Meanwhile, British critic Robin Jarossi has posted his rundown of “2012’s ten best crime shows” right here.
• Wow, publisher Thomas & Mercer has certainly done well by Max Allan Collins, releasing many of his older novels in handsome
new paperback editions. It’s especially nice to see Collins’ six “disaster mysteries” back in print.
• It seems that the largest government-sanctioned execution in U.S. history took place 150 years ago today, on December 26, 1862. Thirty-eight Dakota Indians were hanged in the small town of Mankato, Minnesota, for “killing 490 white settlers, including women and children, in the Santee Sioux uprising the previous August.” Those executions marked the end of the so-called Dakota War of 1862. The story of that largely forgotten conflict is told in Scott W. Berg’s new book, 38 Nooses: Lincoln, Little Crow, and the Beginning of the Frontier’s End, which I just received for Christmas from my friend Byron, and look forward to reading.
• I’ve never really given much thought to Christmas-and-crime crossovers, but following on the heels of my recent recommendation that you watch a holiday-themed episode of Man Against Crime and The Avengers’ “Too Many Christmas Trees” ep, let me point you as well to these seasonal treats: the December 21, 1957, installment of Have Gun, Will Travel, titled “The Hanging Cross”; a clip from the December 23, 1966, episode of The Man from U.N.C.L.E., “The Jingle Bells Affair”; and “The Case of the Christmas Pudding,” the April 4, 1955, episode of Sherlock Holmes, a short-lived American series, based of course on Arthur Conan Doyle’s famous Victorian sleuth.
• Here’s another museum worth visiting in Washington, D.C.
• British producer and writer Gerry Anderson--who gave TV watchers such science-fiction classics as Stingray, Thunderbirds, Space: 1999, and (my personal favorite) UFO--has passed away at age 83.
• Although it’s been wildly uneven in the quality of its coverage over the last several years, I am still sorry to see Newsweek release its final print edition this week. Launched under the banner News-Week on February 17, 1933, the magazine was owned for most of its 79 years by The Washington Post Company, which finally sold it in 2010 after significant monetary losses. Reports are that Newsweek will be reborn in 2013 as the all-digital Newsweek Global, but for all intents and purposes, the mag as we have known and loved it is dead.
• This “chilling graph in Ezra Klein’s Washington Post blog makes abundantly clear that “in the United States, when people decide to kill people, or kill themselves, they typically reach for a gun.”
• Perfect for today: a Boxing Day mystery.
• Drat, another fine Shell Scott story I haven’t read.
• Slattery’s People is one of those TV dramas I’ve heard quite a bit about over the years, but have never seen. Broadcast on CBS from 1964 to 1965, and starring Richard Crenna, it was, as Wikipedia notes, “one of the few American television series spotlighting the travails of local politicians, a topic that other programs of the period mainly avoided.” If you’re curious to know more, check out this new article about Slattery’s People in Television Obscurities.
• Gawk with me now at the New York City that once was.
• And here’s bad news for Downton Abbey fans, like me: Dan Stevens, who plays reluctant heir Matthew Crawley on that extraordinarily popular British period series, won’t be returning for Season Four. Meanwhile, American viewers should ready themselves for the start of Season Three on PBS-TV on Sunday, January 6.
• Meanwhile, British critic Robin Jarossi has posted his rundown of “2012’s ten best crime shows” right here.
• Wow, publisher Thomas & Mercer has certainly done well by Max Allan Collins, releasing many of his older novels in handsome
new paperback editions. It’s especially nice to see Collins’ six “disaster mysteries” back in print.• It seems that the largest government-sanctioned execution in U.S. history took place 150 years ago today, on December 26, 1862. Thirty-eight Dakota Indians were hanged in the small town of Mankato, Minnesota, for “killing 490 white settlers, including women and children, in the Santee Sioux uprising the previous August.” Those executions marked the end of the so-called Dakota War of 1862. The story of that largely forgotten conflict is told in Scott W. Berg’s new book, 38 Nooses: Lincoln, Little Crow, and the Beginning of the Frontier’s End, which I just received for Christmas from my friend Byron, and look forward to reading.
• I’ve never really given much thought to Christmas-and-crime crossovers, but following on the heels of my recent recommendation that you watch a holiday-themed episode of Man Against Crime and The Avengers’ “Too Many Christmas Trees” ep, let me point you as well to these seasonal treats: the December 21, 1957, installment of Have Gun, Will Travel, titled “The Hanging Cross”; a clip from the December 23, 1966, episode of The Man from U.N.C.L.E., “The Jingle Bells Affair”; and “The Case of the Christmas Pudding,” the April 4, 1955, episode of Sherlock Holmes, a short-lived American series, based of course on Arthur Conan Doyle’s famous Victorian sleuth.
• Here’s another museum worth visiting in Washington, D.C.
• British producer and writer Gerry Anderson--who gave TV watchers such science-fiction classics as Stingray, Thunderbirds, Space: 1999, and (my personal favorite) UFO--has passed away at age 83.
• Although it’s been wildly uneven in the quality of its coverage over the last several years, I am still sorry to see Newsweek release its final print edition this week. Launched under the banner News-Week on February 17, 1933, the magazine was owned for most of its 79 years by The Washington Post Company, which finally sold it in 2010 after significant monetary losses. Reports are that Newsweek will be reborn in 2013 as the all-digital Newsweek Global, but for all intents and purposes, the mag as we have known and loved it is dead.
• This “chilling graph in Ezra Klein’s Washington Post blog makes abundantly clear that “in the United States, when people decide to kill people, or kill themselves, they typically reach for a gun.”
• Perfect for today: a Boxing Day mystery.
• Drat, another fine Shell Scott story I haven’t read.
• Slattery’s People is one of those TV dramas I’ve heard quite a bit about over the years, but have never seen. Broadcast on CBS from 1964 to 1965, and starring Richard Crenna, it was, as Wikipedia notes, “one of the few American television series spotlighting the travails of local politicians, a topic that other programs of the period mainly avoided.” If you’re curious to know more, check out this new article about Slattery’s People in Television Obscurities.
• Gawk with me now at the New York City that once was.
• And here’s bad news for Downton Abbey fans, like me: Dan Stevens, who plays reluctant heir Matthew Crawley on that extraordinarily popular British period series, won’t be returning for Season Four. Meanwhile, American viewers should ready themselves for the start of Season Three on PBS-TV on Sunday, January 6.
Tuesday, December 25, 2012
Klugman and Durning Sign Off
I was very sorry to learn last evening that American actor Jack Klugman, who played
Dr. R. Quincy in the classic NBC-TV crime drama Quincy, M.E. (and before that,
co-starred with Tony Randall in the sitcom The Odd Couple) died Monday at age 90.
From the Associated Press obituary of Klugman:
Departing the stage yesterday as well was Charles Durning, who appeared in such films as Breakheart Pass (based on Alistair MacLean’s novel of the same name), True Confessions, The Rosary Murders, V.I. Warshawski, and O Brother, Where Art Thou? In addition, Durning was nominated for a Primetime Emmy Award for his appearance in an April 1998 episode of Homicide: Life on the Street titled “Finnegan’s Wake.” During was 89 years old.
READ MORE: “Jack Klugman: April 27, 1922-December 24, 2012,” by Jeremy Lynch (Crimespree Magazine); “Jack Klugman’s Secret, Lifesaving Legacy,” by Joshua Green (The Washington Post); “Appreciation: Jack Klugman Relatable as Oscar, Fervid as Quincy,” by Robert Lloyd (Los Angeles Times); “Jack Klugman, R.I.P.,” by Lee Goldberg (A Writer’s Life); “The Late, Great Jack Klugman” and “Charles Durning Passes On,” by Terence Towles Canote (A Shroud of Thoughts).
From the Associated Press obituary of Klugman:
In “Quincy, M.E.,” which ran from 1976 to 1983, Klugman played an idealistic, tough-minded medical examiner who tussled with his boss by uncovering evidence of murder in cases where others saw natural causes.Klugman also starred with Peter Graves in the underrated 1974 TV pilot The Underground Man, based on Ross Macdonald's 1971 novel.
“We had some wonderful writers,” he said in a 1987 Associated Press interview. “Quincy was a muckraker, like Upton Sinclair, who wrote about injustices. He was my ideal as a youngster, my author, my hero.
“Everybody said, `Quincy’ll never be a hit.’ I said, `You guys are wrong. He’s two heroes in one, a cop and a doctor.’ A coroner has power. He can tell the police commissioner to investigate a murder. I saw the opportunity to do what I’d gotten into the theater to do--give a message.
“They were going to do cops and robbers with `Quincy.’ I said, `You promised me I could do causes.’ They said, `Nobody wants to see that.’ I said, `Look at the success of “60 Minutes.” They want to see it if you present it as entertainment.’”
Departing the stage yesterday as well was Charles Durning, who appeared in such films as Breakheart Pass (based on Alistair MacLean’s novel of the same name), True Confessions, The Rosary Murders, V.I. Warshawski, and O Brother, Where Art Thou? In addition, Durning was nominated for a Primetime Emmy Award for his appearance in an April 1998 episode of Homicide: Life on the Street titled “Finnegan’s Wake.” During was 89 years old.
READ MORE: “Jack Klugman: April 27, 1922-December 24, 2012,” by Jeremy Lynch (Crimespree Magazine); “Jack Klugman’s Secret, Lifesaving Legacy,” by Joshua Green (The Washington Post); “Appreciation: Jack Klugman Relatable as Oscar, Fervid as Quincy,” by Robert Lloyd (Los Angeles Times); “Jack Klugman, R.I.P.,” by Lee Goldberg (A Writer’s Life); “The Late, Great Jack Klugman” and “Charles Durning Passes On,” by Terence Towles Canote (A Shroud of Thoughts).
The Early Word
Although it’s Christmas Day, and fewer people than normal are browsing around the Web, you should note that my latest column for Kirkus Reviews was posted earlier this morning. In it, I offer previews of half a dozen crime, mystery, and thriller novels scheduled for release during the first three months of 2013, plus brief mentions of other works in the genre likely to spark your interest.
Check out the piece here when you have a chance.
Check out the piece here when you have a chance.
Monday, December 24, 2012
The Last Con Job
This is unfortunate news, to be sure. And delivered at Christmastime, no less! The U.S. TV network TNT has cancelled the long-running and well-regarded con-artist series Leverage. The final episode, appropriately titled “The Long Goodbye,” will air tomorrow at 9 p.m.
Co-creator and executive producer Dean Devlin is quoted as saying:
So count me among those viewers who will miss Leverage, and who will be sure to tune in “The Long Goodbye.”
READ MORE: “TNT Cancels Leverage,” by Gerald So
(My Life Called So).
Co-creator and executive producer Dean Devlin is quoted as saying:
Leverage has thrilled audiences with its delightfully intricate plots, its “stand up for the little guy” attitude and its terrific performances from stars Timothy Hutton, Gina Bellman, Christian Kane, Beth Riesgraf and Aldis Hodge. But after five wonderful years, it’s time to say goodbye.Although I have probably missed seeing a few episodes along the way, I count myself as a Leverage fan. The show brought good humor and plenty of heart to the broadcast airwaves, along with some delightful storytelling moments. I particularly remember an episode from last year, “The 10 Li’l Grifters Job,” in which Timothy Hutton, playing former insurance investigator Nathan Ford, attended a masquerade/murder mystery party dressed--complete with crushable hat--as Ellery Queen, the classic amateur sleuth portrayed by his late father, Jim Hutton, in a charming 1970s NBC-TV series.
So count me among those viewers who will miss Leverage, and who will be sure to tune in “The Long Goodbye.”
READ MORE: “TNT Cancels Leverage,” by Gerald So
(My Life Called So).
Thursday, December 20, 2012
Reading to the (Bitter) End
Now, I’m not buying into this whole reading of the Mayan calendar that claims we’re in for apocalyptic and literally earth-shattering events tomorrow. We have already survived more than a few predicted ends of the world over the last 2,000 years. Why believe these latest prognostications of doom, especially when they may we be based on a misunderstanding? As the Los Angeles Times reports, “NASA scientists and Mayan scholars say there is no reason to fear Dec. 21. They say the date simply marks the end of one 5,125-year cycle of the complex Mayan calendar and the beginning of another one.”
There’s nothing wrong, though, with employing this latest end-of-the-planet scenario as entertainment. Several media sources have already provided suggestions of what to read, if we actually have just a few pitiful hours left in which to bury our noses in books. (Cormac McCarthy’s The Road seems to be a popular choice.)
But what I want to know is this:
If our beloved but puny globe at the edge of the Milky Way does meet with destruction tomorrow, and we’re all swept away in a sea of fire, say, or a cataclysmic cascade of asteroids, what books will you not have finished reading?
I am not looking for your whole to-be-read list, just the titles and authors of books you’ve already begun.
OK, so I’ll go first. Here are the works of fiction and non-fiction that I would be leaving behind, only partially completed:
• An Instrument of Slaughter, by Edward Marston (Allison & Busby)
• Whiskey Island, by Les Roberts (Gray & Company)
• The Count of Monte Cristo, by Alexander Dumas (Penguin)
• Fobbit, by David Abrams (Black Cat/Grove Atlantic)
• The Great American Railroad War: How Ambrose Bierce and Frank
Norris Took On the Notorious Central Pacific Railroad, by Dennis Drabelle
(St. Martin’s Press)Now it’s your turn. List in the Comments section of this post the one or more books you’re in the midst of consuming, but wouldn’t have time to finish before the end of the day tomorrow, Friday.
I hope you will play along.
READ MORE: “The Maya Apocalypse Is Not Nigh,” by Alex Halperin (Salon); “The End of the World As We Know It, Again,” by Christopher Morgan (Criminal Element); “The Mayan Apocalypse: By the Numbers,” by Harold Maass (Mental Floss); “12 Signs That It’s the End of the World (As We Know It),” by Deborah Montesano (Addicting Info).
Tuesday, December 18, 2012
Memories of Maxine
This isn’t the first time we have had to report the demise of a crime-fiction blogger; Elaine Flinn and our friend Dick Adler have both “gone to their rewards” over the last several years. But blogging still seems such a new phenomenon, it’s hard to imagine that people who have been engaged in the game can already be passing away.
Rhian Davies (aka CrimeFicReader) first brought us the sad news that Maxine Clarke, an editor of the British scientific journal Nature who also--over the last seven years--wrote the excellent blog Petrona, died yesterday after what’s being described as a “lengthy” battle with cancer. But online tributes have been rolling in ever since. Her friend Karen Meek of Euro Crime, to which Clarke often contributed “peerless” book critiques, describes her as “a fast reader” who, “even when ill could read and review a book I’d given her before I’d get back to Birmingham! I can’t imagine how many books have been bought as a result of her well-written reviews, and that is legacy worth leaving.” Norman Price of Crime Scraps Review adds: “She tempted so many inexperienced bloggers to dip their toe in the blogging water and then jump in with her helpful comments and encouragement, that we all owe Maxine a great debt of gratitude. Her own blog, Petrona, was a source of pleasure, excellent writing, valuable opinions, and a constant temptation to plagiarise.” Davies concludes her own post about Clarke’s death with these remarks: “Maxine was a true lover of crime fiction and a rock in the lives of many. It is so hard to believe she is no longer with us but she will always be remembered with love and respect, and for her massive achievements.” Other memories of Clarke can be found here, here, here, here, here, and here.
I don’t yet see an obituary of Clarke anywhere on the Web, or any mention of how old she was at the time of her death. However, the Nature Web site explains that she held degrees in physiology and psychology from the University of Oxford, as well as a Doctor of Philosophy degree in biophysics from that same venerable institution. She’d also done a postdoctoral fellowship in “biophysics of muscle crossbridges” at King’s College. Clarke lived in London.
I regret that I never met Maxine Clarke, but I did appreciate her reviews in Euro Crime and elsewhere. And the eulogies around the Web make it clear that she touched and encouraged many people, authors and critics alike. We can only be grateful that she was among us for as long as she was, sharing her knowledge, talents, and warmth.
UPDATE: Her family has created a Maxine Clarke memorial Web site here, which provides the information that she was “born in Manchester on September 03, 1954.” That means she was only 58 years old when she died. Much too young.
Rhian Davies (aka CrimeFicReader) first brought us the sad news that Maxine Clarke, an editor of the British scientific journal Nature who also--over the last seven years--wrote the excellent blog Petrona, died yesterday after what’s being described as a “lengthy” battle with cancer. But online tributes have been rolling in ever since. Her friend Karen Meek of Euro Crime, to which Clarke often contributed “peerless” book critiques, describes her as “a fast reader” who, “even when ill could read and review a book I’d given her before I’d get back to Birmingham! I can’t imagine how many books have been bought as a result of her well-written reviews, and that is legacy worth leaving.” Norman Price of Crime Scraps Review adds: “She tempted so many inexperienced bloggers to dip their toe in the blogging water and then jump in with her helpful comments and encouragement, that we all owe Maxine a great debt of gratitude. Her own blog, Petrona, was a source of pleasure, excellent writing, valuable opinions, and a constant temptation to plagiarise.” Davies concludes her own post about Clarke’s death with these remarks: “Maxine was a true lover of crime fiction and a rock in the lives of many. It is so hard to believe she is no longer with us but she will always be remembered with love and respect, and for her massive achievements.” Other memories of Clarke can be found here, here, here, here, here, and here.
I don’t yet see an obituary of Clarke anywhere on the Web, or any mention of how old she was at the time of her death. However, the Nature Web site explains that she held degrees in physiology and psychology from the University of Oxford, as well as a Doctor of Philosophy degree in biophysics from that same venerable institution. She’d also done a postdoctoral fellowship in “biophysics of muscle crossbridges” at King’s College. Clarke lived in London.
I regret that I never met Maxine Clarke, but I did appreciate her reviews in Euro Crime and elsewhere. And the eulogies around the Web make it clear that she touched and encouraged many people, authors and critics alike. We can only be grateful that she was among us for as long as she was, sharing her knowledge, talents, and warmth.
UPDATE: Her family has created a Maxine Clarke memorial Web site here, which provides the information that she was “born in Manchester on September 03, 1954.” That means she was only 58 years old when she died. Much too young.
“Cotton” Comes to the Beeb
For Chester Himes fans and anyone else who appreciates good storytelling, here’s some welcome news: Himes’ 1965 novel, Cotton Comes to Harlem--his sixth and best-known work featuring New York City cops Coffin Ed Johnson and Grave Digger Jones--has been adapted as a four-part series for BBC Radio 4. Read by Hugh Quarshie, the series began yesterday and will continue through Thursday, with each episode being available on the Web for a week.
Click here to listen. But do it now!
To further stir your interest in and curiosity about what the BBC has done with Himes’ yarn, here’s the trailer for a very different version of Cotton, the 1970 blaxploitation film based on that book.
(Hat tip to Spinetingler Magazine and Gary Phillips.)
Click here to listen. But do it now!
To further stir your interest in and curiosity about what the BBC has done with Himes’ yarn, here’s the trailer for a very different version of Cotton, the 1970 blaxploitation film based on that book.
(Hat tip to Spinetingler Magazine and Gary Phillips.)
Sunday, December 16, 2012
Bullet Points: Review and Revivals Edition
• There are so many Christmas-related mysteries, editor-blogger Janet Rudolph is posting them alphabetically in several parts. Novels by authors whose last names begin with the letters A-D can be found here; the E-H listings are here; and crime fiction by wordsmiths bearing monikers that start with I-N are here. The rest of the alphabet should be covered in Rudolph’s Mystery Fanfare
this week.
• I have never watched 1935’s The Glass Key, the first of two big-screen adaptations of Dashiell Hammett’s novel of the same name. But Kliph Nesteroff’s Classic Television Showbiz blog now features that picture in its entirety here. (By the way, the second version of Hammett’s novel was made in 1942 and starred both Alan Ladd and Veronica Lake. Click here to view a clip from that adaptation.)
• TV watchers who enjoyed the too-soon-cancelled, 2010-2011 series Detroit 1-8-7 might be interested to learn that the AMC network has given the go-ahead to production of another cop series set in the Motor City. According to the news site Deadline Detroit, AMC has “ordered up 10, one-hour episodes” of Low Winter Sun, adding that “the Detroit cop show is based on a 2006 British miniseries and focuses on murder, revenge and corruption. It will debut sometime in 2013.” The Hollywood Reporter explains that Low Winter Sun “is a contemporary story of murder, deception, revenge and corruption in a world where the line between cops and criminals is blurred. The drama kicks off with the murder of a cop by a Detroit detective.” Like the 2006 original, this AMC remake will star UK actor Mark Strong.
• Just try to use this word in a sentence.
• The new table-computer-based crime-fiction periodical, Noir Magazine, was originally set to debut this last October, but that launch had to be delayed; the expectation now is that its first issue will appear this coming Wednesday, December 19. In a note sent to people who helped fund Noir’s creation through Kickstarter, editor Nancie Clare says the inaugural edition will be “an embarrassment of riches,” featuring “articles and stories by Lee Child, Michael Connelly, Denise Hamilton, Annie Jacobson, Laura Lippman and Otto Penzler, among others.” In addition, “writers Val McDermid and Craig Robertson weigh in on the inaugural Scottish crime writer’s festival, Bloody Scotland, and Denise Mina takes us on a tour of her Glasgow.”
• You haven’t yet seen the last of Tony Hillerman’s two Navajo tribal policemen, Joe Leaphorn and Jim Chee. Hillerman passed away in 2008, but his daughter, Anne Hillerman, tells New Mexico’s Albuquerque Journal that she intends to continue her father’s award-winning mystery-fiction series. Her first new Leaphorn-Chee novel, Spider Woman’s Daughter, is slated for release this coming fall by publisher HarperCollins. (Hat tip to Omnimystery News.)
• I’m still tracking critics’ tallies of their favorite crime and thriller fiction from 2012. Irish author and blogger Declan Burke includes on his list The Silver Stain, by Paul Johnston; The Gods of Gotham, by Lyndsay Faye; and Another Time, Another Life, by Leif G.W. Persson. Meanwhile, among Pulp Curry’s choices are The Darkest Little Room, by Patrick Holland, and Dare Me, by Megan Abbott. And The New Yorker’s Malcolm Gladwell applauds Shake Off, by Mischa Hiller.
• More “best of 2012”: The blog Guns, Gams, and Gumshoes selects its “7 Favorite Private Investigator Sites” of the year.
• Criminal Element’s Deborah Lacy chooses her favorite crime-fighting TV couples. I’m just pleased to see that they’re not exclusively from the last 10 or 15 years. She includes among the bunch Remington Steele and Laura Holt of Remington Steele, along with David Addison and Maddie Hayes of Moonlighting. I’d like to add to Lacy’s list Amanda King and Lee Stetson from Scarecrow and Mrs. King, and--though it violates the man-and-woman theme--Christine Cagney and Mary Beth Lacey from Cagney & Lacey.
• Well, this is embarrassing.
• An interview worth reading: J. Sydney Jones talks with Qiu Xiaolong, Chinese author of the Inspector Chen series.
• Curt Evans celebrates one of Ross Macdonald’s few non-Lew Archer novels, 1960’s The Ferguson Affair, in The Passing Tramp.
• Mystery*File’s Michael Shonk weighs the strengths of various TV show opening themes seen over the last few decades.
• And this should bring new attention to the prospective TV revival of The Saint: Radiant actress Eliza Dushku (formerly of Tru Calling and Dollhouse) has reportedly signed on to play Patricia Holm, Simon Templar’s on-and-off girlfriend, opposite Adam Rayner in the lead role.
• I have never watched 1935’s The Glass Key, the first of two big-screen adaptations of Dashiell Hammett’s novel of the same name. But Kliph Nesteroff’s Classic Television Showbiz blog now features that picture in its entirety here. (By the way, the second version of Hammett’s novel was made in 1942 and starred both Alan Ladd and Veronica Lake. Click here to view a clip from that adaptation.)
• TV watchers who enjoyed the too-soon-cancelled, 2010-2011 series Detroit 1-8-7 might be interested to learn that the AMC network has given the go-ahead to production of another cop series set in the Motor City. According to the news site Deadline Detroit, AMC has “ordered up 10, one-hour episodes” of Low Winter Sun, adding that “the Detroit cop show is based on a 2006 British miniseries and focuses on murder, revenge and corruption. It will debut sometime in 2013.” The Hollywood Reporter explains that Low Winter Sun “is a contemporary story of murder, deception, revenge and corruption in a world where the line between cops and criminals is blurred. The drama kicks off with the murder of a cop by a Detroit detective.” Like the 2006 original, this AMC remake will star UK actor Mark Strong.
• Just try to use this word in a sentence.
• The new table-computer-based crime-fiction periodical, Noir Magazine, was originally set to debut this last October, but that launch had to be delayed; the expectation now is that its first issue will appear this coming Wednesday, December 19. In a note sent to people who helped fund Noir’s creation through Kickstarter, editor Nancie Clare says the inaugural edition will be “an embarrassment of riches,” featuring “articles and stories by Lee Child, Michael Connelly, Denise Hamilton, Annie Jacobson, Laura Lippman and Otto Penzler, among others.” In addition, “writers Val McDermid and Craig Robertson weigh in on the inaugural Scottish crime writer’s festival, Bloody Scotland, and Denise Mina takes us on a tour of her Glasgow.”
• You haven’t yet seen the last of Tony Hillerman’s two Navajo tribal policemen, Joe Leaphorn and Jim Chee. Hillerman passed away in 2008, but his daughter, Anne Hillerman, tells New Mexico’s Albuquerque Journal that she intends to continue her father’s award-winning mystery-fiction series. Her first new Leaphorn-Chee novel, Spider Woman’s Daughter, is slated for release this coming fall by publisher HarperCollins. (Hat tip to Omnimystery News.)
• I’m still tracking critics’ tallies of their favorite crime and thriller fiction from 2012. Irish author and blogger Declan Burke includes on his list The Silver Stain, by Paul Johnston; The Gods of Gotham, by Lyndsay Faye; and Another Time, Another Life, by Leif G.W. Persson. Meanwhile, among Pulp Curry’s choices are The Darkest Little Room, by Patrick Holland, and Dare Me, by Megan Abbott. And The New Yorker’s Malcolm Gladwell applauds Shake Off, by Mischa Hiller.
• More “best of 2012”: The blog Guns, Gams, and Gumshoes selects its “7 Favorite Private Investigator Sites” of the year.
• Criminal Element’s Deborah Lacy chooses her favorite crime-fighting TV couples. I’m just pleased to see that they’re not exclusively from the last 10 or 15 years. She includes among the bunch Remington Steele and Laura Holt of Remington Steele, along with David Addison and Maddie Hayes of Moonlighting. I’d like to add to Lacy’s list Amanda King and Lee Stetson from Scarecrow and Mrs. King, and--though it violates the man-and-woman theme--Christine Cagney and Mary Beth Lacey from Cagney & Lacey.
• Well, this is embarrassing.
• An interview worth reading: J. Sydney Jones talks with Qiu Xiaolong, Chinese author of the Inspector Chen series.
• Curt Evans celebrates one of Ross Macdonald’s few non-Lew Archer novels, 1960’s The Ferguson Affair, in The Passing Tramp.
• Mystery*File’s Michael Shonk weighs the strengths of various TV show opening themes seen over the last few decades.
• And this should bring new attention to the prospective TV revival of The Saint: Radiant actress Eliza Dushku (formerly of Tru Calling and Dollhouse) has reportedly signed on to play Patricia Holm, Simon Templar’s on-and-off girlfriend, opposite Adam Rayner in the lead role.
Saturday, December 15, 2012
“A Particularly Nasty Type” of Santa
Here’s something to help put you in the holiday mood: an episode of The Avengers, titled “Too Many Christmas Trees,” and originally broadcast in the UK in December 1965. Watch it here.
Wednesday, December 12, 2012
First Encounters
Once more I’m closing in on the end of a year--a chance to reflect on what I’ve read over the last 12 months ... and what I have not yet found the opportunity to enjoy. 2012 certainly offered many 
excellent reasons to bury my muzzle in freshly printed pages. But there are books still collecting dust on my to-be-read pile(s).
After the close of 2011, when I realized that I had unwittingly concentrated on crime fiction and history at the near-complete exclusion of mainstream fiction, I tried this year to make up for that imbalance. Thus, I spent many pleasurable hours before such offerings as Selden Edwards’ The Lost Prince (his first sequel to 2008’s phenomenal The Little Book), Thomas Mallon’s Watergate, Denis Johnson’s Train Dreams, Kurt Andersen’s True Believers, Carlos Ruiz Zafón’s The Prisoner of Heaven, Mark Helprin’s In Sunlight and in Shadow, and John Sayles’ A Moment in the Sun. This doesn’t mean, though, that I ignored what was being introduced in the crime, mystery, and thriller fiction arena; I definitely did not, and can count Philip Kerr’s Prague Fatale, J. Robert Janes’ Bellringer, Adrian Magson’s Death on the Pont Noir, and Mark Mills’ House of the Hunted among my favorite reads in the genre since January 1 of this year. Non-fiction attracted my attention too, as it usually does, and I delighted in a close study of Sally Denton’s The Plots Against the President: FDR, a Nation in Crisis, and the Rise of the American Right, Max Allan Collins and James L. Traylor’s Mickey Spillane on Screen: A Complete Study of the Television and Film Adaptations, David Corn’s Showdown: The Inside Story of How Obama Battled the GOP to Set Up the 2012 Election, and Geoffrey C. Ward’s quite colorful historical work, A Disposition to Be Rich: How a Small-Town Pastor’s Son Ruined an American President, Brought on a Wall Street Crash, and Made Himself the Best-Hated Man in the United States.
As has become my custom over the last several years, I also make a point of looking back every December at which authors were new to me during the previous 12 months. Below is a list of novelists whose work I first checked out in 2012. Debut efforts are boldfaced. Asterisks denote crime or thriller fiction.
• Beryl Bainbridge (Every Man for Himself)
My inventory of non-fiction books consumed during 2012 and penned by
authors new to me is quite a bit shorter, but there are definitely some gems here:
• Hugh Brewster (Gilded Lives, Fatal Voyage: The Titanic’s First-Class Passengers and Their World)
So that’s my rundown, but what about yours? Which authors’ work did you initially sample in 2012? Please let us all know their bylines and book titles in the Comments section of this post.
excellent reasons to bury my muzzle in freshly printed pages. But there are books still collecting dust on my to-be-read pile(s).After the close of 2011, when I realized that I had unwittingly concentrated on crime fiction and history at the near-complete exclusion of mainstream fiction, I tried this year to make up for that imbalance. Thus, I spent many pleasurable hours before such offerings as Selden Edwards’ The Lost Prince (his first sequel to 2008’s phenomenal The Little Book), Thomas Mallon’s Watergate, Denis Johnson’s Train Dreams, Kurt Andersen’s True Believers, Carlos Ruiz Zafón’s The Prisoner of Heaven, Mark Helprin’s In Sunlight and in Shadow, and John Sayles’ A Moment in the Sun. This doesn’t mean, though, that I ignored what was being introduced in the crime, mystery, and thriller fiction arena; I definitely did not, and can count Philip Kerr’s Prague Fatale, J. Robert Janes’ Bellringer, Adrian Magson’s Death on the Pont Noir, and Mark Mills’ House of the Hunted among my favorite reads in the genre since January 1 of this year. Non-fiction attracted my attention too, as it usually does, and I delighted in a close study of Sally Denton’s The Plots Against the President: FDR, a Nation in Crisis, and the Rise of the American Right, Max Allan Collins and James L. Traylor’s Mickey Spillane on Screen: A Complete Study of the Television and Film Adaptations, David Corn’s Showdown: The Inside Story of How Obama Battled the GOP to Set Up the 2012 Election, and Geoffrey C. Ward’s quite colorful historical work, A Disposition to Be Rich: How a Small-Town Pastor’s Son Ruined an American President, Brought on a Wall Street Crash, and Made Himself the Best-Hated Man in the United States.
As has become my custom over the last several years, I also make a point of looking back every December at which authors were new to me during the previous 12 months. Below is a list of novelists whose work I first checked out in 2012. Debut efforts are boldfaced. Asterisks denote crime or thriller fiction.
• Beryl Bainbridge (Every Man for Himself)
• Robert Olen Butler (The Hot Country)*
• Stephen L. Carter (The Impeachment of Abraham Lincoln)*
• Wessel Ebersohn (Those
Who Love Night)*
• Gerald Elias (Death
and Transfiguration)*
• Barry Fantoni (Harry
Lipkin, Private Eye)*
• Robert Goldsborough (Archie
Meets Nero Wolfe)*
• Alex Grecian
(The
Yard)*
• Wolf Haas (Brenner and God)*
• Mischa Hiller (Shake Off)*
• Andrew Hunt
(City
of Saints)*
• Mons Kallentoft (Midwinter Blood)*
• Henry Kane (Peter Gunn)*
• David Kowalski (The
Company of the Dead)
• Marek
Krajewski (Death in Breslau)*
• Janice Law (Fires of London)*
• Gypsy Rose Lee (Mother
Finds a Body)*
• Peter May (The
Blackhouse)*
• Guillermo Orsi (Holy
City)*
• J.B. O’Sullivan (I
Die Possessed)*
• Anthony
Quinn (Disappeared)*
• Sax Rohmer (The
Mystery of Fu-Manchu)*
• William Ryan (The
Darkening Field)*
• C.J. Sansom (Dominion)*
• John Sayles (A Moment in the Sun)
• Alex Scarrow (The
Candle Man)*
• Lynn Shepherd (The
Solitary House)*
• Marco Vichi (Death in August)*
• Martin Walker (The
Devil’s Cave)*
• John Williams (Stoner)
• Ariel
S. Winter (The
Twenty-Year Death)*My inventory of non-fiction books consumed during 2012 and penned by
authors new to me is quite a bit shorter, but there are definitely some gems here:• Hugh Brewster (Gilded Lives, Fatal Voyage: The Titanic’s First-Class Passengers and Their World)
• Molly Caldwell Crosby (The Great Pearl Heist: London’s Greatest Thief and
Scotland Yard’s Hunt for the World’s Most Valuable Necklace)
Scotland Yard’s Hunt for the World’s Most Valuable Necklace)
• Sally Denton (The Plots Against the President: FDR, A Nation in Crisis, and the Rise of the American Right)
• Robert Graysmith (Black Fire: The True Story of the
Original Tom Sawyer--and of the Mysterious Fires That Baptized Gold Rush-Era San Francisco)
Original Tom Sawyer--and of the Mysterious Fires That Baptized Gold Rush-Era San Francisco)
• Philip
Greene (To Have and Have Another: A Hemingway
Cocktail Companion)
Cocktail Companion)
• Tom Reiss (The Black Count: Glory, Revolution,
Betrayal, and the Read Count of Monte Cristo)
• Scott Andrew Selby (The Axman Conspiracy: The Nazi
Plan for a Fourth Reich and How the U.S. Army Defeated It)
• Alec Wilkinson (The Ice Balloon)So that’s my rundown, but what about yours? Which authors’ work did you initially sample in 2012? Please let us all know their bylines and book titles in the Comments section of this post.
Spying, Lying, and Smog in Nazi Britain
I already named C.J. Sansom’s historical espionage thriller, Dominion (Mantle UK), in Kirkus Reviews as one of my 10 favorite crime novels of 2012. But I still have a few more things to say about that “alternative history” work, and offer up those remarks today in my Kirkus column. I write, in part:
Dominion is plump with character studies, if light on the sort of action familiar from numerous spy novels. It’s more a slow-burning but captivating, 593-page political thriller rife with resisters and collaborators, none of them wholly virtuous or venal. And it proposes a raft of British historical figures who, under the circumstances outlined here, might ultimately have sided with the Nazis--speculation that could earn the author a flurry of outraged letters from those people’s descendants. Sansom also highlights the destructive potential of government policies rooted in nationalism and racial enmity, both of which, he observed in an essay for The Guardian newspaper, recently “came to the fore again in Europe as economic crisis gripped the continent ...”You can enjoy the complete piece here.
* * *
Speaking of Kirkus, it’s currently holding a contest to give away one of those newfangled Kindle Fire e-book readers. To enter, all you need do is click here and submit your name and e-mail address. Good luck!
Cain Goes to the Cinema
In an excellent essay for the Los Angeles Review of Books, author Steve Erickson looks back at James M. Cain, his novel The Postman Always Rings Twice, and Hollywood’s response to both.
Fright Night
There have been many interpretations over the years of Charles Dickens’ 1843 holiday tale, A Christmas Carol, but few as memorable as the musical adaptation Mr. Magoo’s Christmas Carol. Wikipedia says this “was the first animated holiday program ever produced specifically for television, originally airing in December 1962, and the only one until the stop-motion Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer was first shown in December 1964.” I must have watched this hour-long program--which has Jim Backus voicing Ebenezer Scrooge and Jack Cassidy as the lowly Bob Cratchit--dozens of times. Yet it still brings a smile to my face and a modicum of joy to my heart.
With Christmas now less than two weeks away, it seems right to revisit the near-sighted Quincy Magoo and his ghostly guest stars. Enjoy!
UPDATE: When I first composed this post, Mr. Magoo’s Christmas Carol was available in its entirety on YouTube, and I embedded it above. However, that video has since been taken down “due to a copyright claim.” As a substitute, I have installed at the top of this post a scene from the film, which finds Scrooge visiting the humble home of Bob Cratchit, in company with the Ghost of Christmas Present. You can purchase a DVD of Mr. Magoo’s Christmas Carol from Amazon.
READ MORE: “Mister Magoo’s Christmas Carol,” by Terence Towles Canote (A Shroud of Thoughts).
Tuesday, December 11, 2012
Time to Saddle Up Again
Author Robert B. Parker may have died almost three years ago, but his literary legacy lives on. I already knew that Ace Atkins is
continuing Parker’s series about Boston private eye Spenser
(the next installment of which, due out in May 2013, will be titled Robert B. Parker’s Wonderland) and that motion-picture
producer Michael Brandman is composing additional titles in Parker’s Jesse Stone series (including Robert B. Parker’s Fool Me Twice, which appeared this last fall).
But what I hadn’t realized until earlier today was that Parker’s 19th-century Western series featuring Everett Hitch and Virgil Cole isn’t riding off into the sunset either. Actor/writer Robert Knott, who--with fellow performer Ed Harris--adapted and produced the 2008 film Appaloosa (based on Parker’s 2005 novel of the same name), has penned at least one new Hitch/Cole novel, Robert B. Parker’s Ironhorse, which is scheduled for release by U.S. publisher Putnam on January 8 of next year.
After all of this, can we expect to see further adventures for Parker’s other Beantown gumshoe, Sunny Randall? Don’t bet against it.
But what I hadn’t realized until earlier today was that Parker’s 19th-century Western series featuring Everett Hitch and Virgil Cole isn’t riding off into the sunset either. Actor/writer Robert Knott, who--with fellow performer Ed Harris--adapted and produced the 2008 film Appaloosa (based on Parker’s 2005 novel of the same name), has penned at least one new Hitch/Cole novel, Robert B. Parker’s Ironhorse, which is scheduled for release by U.S. publisher Putnam on January 8 of next year.
After all of this, can we expect to see further adventures for Parker’s other Beantown gumshoe, Sunny Randall? Don’t bet against it.
Monday, December 10, 2012
New Wheels on an Old Concept?
I can’t tell you how disappointed I am in NBC-TV. When I was a boy back in the 1970s, it was my favorite American entertainment network, offering not only the fabled NBC Mystery Movie (Columbo! McMillan & Wife! Banacek!), but also The Rockford Files, The Magician, City of Angels, Ellery Queen, Petrocelli, Banyon, Search, Police Story, and the now largely forgotten Kingston:
Confidential. NBC went on to solidify my loyalty by scheduling such other
classics as Hill Street Blues, Miami Vice, Crime Story, and The West Wing.
Nowadays, though, do you know how many NBC shows I watch? One. That’s right, of my hours of boob-tube viewing each week, the only NBC series I regularly tune in is Tuesday night’s Parenthood. The network has practically fallen off my radar.
And I’m unlikely to spend more time with NBC, if it continues to make stupid decisions. Two years ago, the network tried to launch a remake of The Rockford Files, starring Dermot Mulroney. Fortunately, the project was soon shelved.
But now NBC hopes to resurrect another well-remembered drama: Ironside, the 1967-1975 series starring Raymond Burr as the San Francisco Police Department’s wheelchair-bound former chief of detectives. According to New York magazine’s Vulture site,
On the other hand, Burr’s Robert T. Ironside was a more surly sort, a chili-consuming spitter of TV-acceptable epithets (“flaming” being his favorite substitute for a certain other f-word). Because the character never struck me as reflective of the actor’s real personality, I can picture the part being taken by someone else--maybe Vincent D’Onofrio of Law & Order: Criminal Intent fame, or John Goodman. (I can even see Willem Dafoe making the Ironside role his own, though he’s mostly given television a wide berth during his career.)
So I am not going to rail on at length here about the injustice of relaunching Ironside (although if, as the A.V. Club blog suggests, the network decides to turn Chief Ironside into a robot, I’ll be sharing with it some choice insults). I still think, however, that it’s idiotic and lazy for TV executives to keep trying to recapture the magic of once-popular programs. NBC has already failed with big-budget reboots of The Bionic Woman, Knight Rider, and The Munsters. Yet it has a rich history of coming up with creative concepts for programs and protagonists. Why can’t it take an honest shot at trying something fresh and risky once more? Or is that too much to ask of U.S. television in the 21st century?
Nowadays, though, do you know how many NBC shows I watch? One. That’s right, of my hours of boob-tube viewing each week, the only NBC series I regularly tune in is Tuesday night’s Parenthood. The network has practically fallen off my radar.
And I’m unlikely to spend more time with NBC, if it continues to make stupid decisions. Two years ago, the network tried to launch a remake of The Rockford Files, starring Dermot Mulroney. Fortunately, the project was soon shelved.
But now NBC hopes to resurrect another well-remembered drama: Ironside, the 1967-1975 series starring Raymond Burr as the San Francisco Police Department’s wheelchair-bound former chief of detectives. According to New York magazine’s Vulture site,
Michael Caleo, who wrote Luc Besson’s upcoming Tommy Lee Jones–Robert De Niro thriller Malavita, is working on a script for the Ironside reboot, with Dave Semel (Person of Interest) attached to direct the pilot if it’s ordered to production. We have no idea if producers plan to retain the very cool Quincy Jones theme song, but as in the original, Detective Ironside will once again be a sarcastic, sometimes-abrasive type who’s aided by a team of specialized experts that help him solve the toughest cases. We’re tempted to call this House in a wheelchair, but Ironside got there first--by about 40 years.I have to admit, I’m somewhat less opposed to remaking Ironside after all these decades than I was to the Rockford revival. In the latter case, actor James Garner was so closely entwined with his role as a compassionate and perpetually impecunious Los Angeles private eye, that I can’t imagine anyone else filling those same shoes. (And no, the goofy Vince Vaughn won’t do the job any better in a theatrical translation of Rockford than the too-gentle Mulroney might have done in a small-screen revision.)
On the other hand, Burr’s Robert T. Ironside was a more surly sort, a chili-consuming spitter of TV-acceptable epithets (“flaming” being his favorite substitute for a certain other f-word). Because the character never struck me as reflective of the actor’s real personality, I can picture the part being taken by someone else--maybe Vincent D’Onofrio of Law & Order: Criminal Intent fame, or John Goodman. (I can even see Willem Dafoe making the Ironside role his own, though he’s mostly given television a wide berth during his career.)
So I am not going to rail on at length here about the injustice of relaunching Ironside (although if, as the A.V. Club blog suggests, the network decides to turn Chief Ironside into a robot, I’ll be sharing with it some choice insults). I still think, however, that it’s idiotic and lazy for TV executives to keep trying to recapture the magic of once-popular programs. NBC has already failed with big-budget reboots of The Bionic Woman, Knight Rider, and The Munsters. Yet it has a rich history of coming up with creative concepts for programs and protagonists. Why can’t it take an honest shot at trying something fresh and risky once more? Or is that too much to ask of U.S. television in the 21st century?
Wednesday, December 05, 2012
The Great and the Good
It’s December, so there is no surprise in the fact that various print and Web publications are releasing their “best of the year” book lists.
The “social cataloguing” site Goodreads is up with its list of 20 top reader choices in the Mystery & Thriller field, including William Landay’s Defending Jacob, Tana French’s Broken Harbor, Robert Crais’ Taken, Jo Nesbø’s Phantom, and--its No. 1 choice--Gillian Flynn’s Gone Girl. (Lyndsay Faye’s The Gods of Gotham earns “best of the year” mention as well, but in the historical fiction section. And J.K. Rowling’s The Casual Vacancy appears under general fiction.)
Gone Girl and The Casual Vacancy also find positions on Book Riot’s “Best Books of 2012” rundown.
Also contending for that boast-worthy accolade were Kind of Cruel, by Sophie Hannah (Hodder & Stoughton); A Question of Identity, by Susan Hill (Chatto & Windus); The House of Silk, by Anthony Horowitz (Orion); Perfect People, by Peter James (Macmillan); and Gods and Beasts, by Denise Mina (Orion).
As Karen Meek at Euro Crime reports, Scottish novelist Ian Rankin won this year’s Outstanding Achievement Award.
The “social cataloguing” site Goodreads is up with its list of 20 top reader choices in the Mystery & Thriller field, including William Landay’s Defending Jacob, Tana French’s Broken Harbor, Robert Crais’ Taken, Jo Nesbø’s Phantom, and--its No. 1 choice--Gillian Flynn’s Gone Girl. (Lyndsay Faye’s The Gods of Gotham earns “best of the year” mention as well, but in the historical fiction section. And J.K. Rowling’s The Casual Vacancy appears under general fiction.)
Gone Girl and The Casual Vacancy also find positions on Book Riot’s “Best Books of 2012” rundown.
* * *
Meanwhile, Britain’s Specsavers National Book Award winners were announced last evening, with Lee Child’s A Wanted Man (Bantam Press) being named the Crime & Thriller of the Year.Also contending for that boast-worthy accolade were Kind of Cruel, by Sophie Hannah (Hodder & Stoughton); A Question of Identity, by Susan Hill (Chatto & Windus); The House of Silk, by Anthony Horowitz (Orion); Perfect People, by Peter James (Macmillan); and Gods and Beasts, by Denise Mina (Orion).
As Karen Meek at Euro Crime reports, Scottish novelist Ian Rankin won this year’s Outstanding Achievement Award.
Tuesday, December 04, 2012
Pierce’s Picks: “Dying on the Vine”
A weekly alert for followers of crime, mystery, and thriller fiction.
Dying on the Vine, by Aaron Elkins (Berkley):
Not to be confused with Peter King’s 1998 novel of the same name, this book is Elkins’ 17th entry in his series featuring forensic anthropologist Gideon Oliver, aka The Skeleton Detective. As has been the case in several previous entries, the trouble begins when Oliver
and his wife, Julie, go
traveling--in this instance, on a lecture junket to the Tuscany wine region of
Italy. While there, they become involved in the mystery of Pietro
Cubbiddu, a prominent vintner, and his wife, Nola, both of whom went missing
from an isolated mountain cabin. Eleven months later their skeletal remains are
discovered at the base of a steep cliff. It isn’t long afterward that the aged
local police pathologist pronounces a verdict of murder-suicide, suggesting
that Pietro killed his spouse and then himself after learning that she had
been having an affair. Oliver, though, begs to differ. He happens to
be visiting in Tuscany with Julie’s old friend Linda Rutledge, the wife of one
of Pietro’s three sons. Asked to re-examine the bones, he concludes that the
pathologist got nearly everything wrong. This exacerbates tensions within the
Cubbiddu clan, which is already rocked by a rivalry between Pietro’s offspring and Nola’s child from a previous marriage, and by questions about
whether Pietro had been planning to sell off the family’s winery. Elkins’ Gideon Oliver stories--which I’ve been reading ever since Fellowship of Fear (1982)--can be predictable in their construction, but that doesn’t make them any less entertaining. Sadly, Elkins says Dying on the Vine will be his last Oliver outing.
Dying on the Vine, by Aaron Elkins (Berkley):
Not to be confused with Peter King’s 1998 novel of the same name, this book is Elkins’ 17th entry in his series featuring forensic anthropologist Gideon Oliver, aka The Skeleton Detective. As has been the case in several previous entries, the trouble begins when Oliver
and his wife, Julie, go
traveling--in this instance, on a lecture junket to the Tuscany wine region of
Italy. While there, they become involved in the mystery of Pietro
Cubbiddu, a prominent vintner, and his wife, Nola, both of whom went missing
from an isolated mountain cabin. Eleven months later their skeletal remains are
discovered at the base of a steep cliff. It isn’t long afterward that the aged
local police pathologist pronounces a verdict of murder-suicide, suggesting
that Pietro killed his spouse and then himself after learning that she had
been having an affair. Oliver, though, begs to differ. He happens to
be visiting in Tuscany with Julie’s old friend Linda Rutledge, the wife of one
of Pietro’s three sons. Asked to re-examine the bones, he concludes that the
pathologist got nearly everything wrong. This exacerbates tensions within the
Cubbiddu clan, which is already rocked by a rivalry between Pietro’s offspring and Nola’s child from a previous marriage, and by questions about
whether Pietro had been planning to sell off the family’s winery. Elkins’ Gideon Oliver stories--which I’ve been reading ever since Fellowship of Fear (1982)--can be predictable in their construction, but that doesn’t make them any less entertaining. Sadly, Elkins says Dying on the Vine will be his last Oliver outing.
Monday, December 03, 2012
Bits and Bytes
• J.K. Rowling’s recent novel for adults, The Casual Vacancy, has received some negative reviews in the press as well as from fans of her best-selling Harry Potter fantasy series. Yet Britain’s BBC One and BBC Drama have reached a deal to create a TV series based on that book about a small English town rife with hidden class and inter-generational struggles. Rowling,
who will reportedly be involved in the book’s adaptation, is quoted in The Hollywood Reporter as saying, “I always felt that, if [The Casual Vacancy] were to be adapted, this novel was best suited to
television, and I think the BBC is the perfect home.” Plans are to debut the
series in 2014.
• Does this 1945 novel by Richard Foster really feature “mysterydom’s only Tibetan-American private detective”?
• A few days ago, I featured in The Rap Sheet a Christmas episode of Man Against Crime, the 1949-1956 TV private-eye series. Today, the blog Classic American Showbiz leads us to a special 1974 Christmas episode of the police drama Adam-12.
• British-born Canadian author Peter Robinson reports on his Web site that DCI Banks, the UK TV production based on his long-running series of Inspector Alan Banks books, and starring Stephen Tompkinson, “is coming to PBS all across the United States.” Although I don’t yet see any notice of this development on PBS’s Web site, Robinson says the series will debut on this side of the Atlantic sometime in January. I’m very familiar with Robinson’s series (after interviewing the author for January Magazine more than decade ago) and have read a number of favorable notices about DCI Banks in Robin Jarossi’s Crime Time Preview blog. So this is a show I’d be very happy to add to my otherwise quite limited TV-watching schedule. To see a preview of DCI Banks’ pilot, based on Robinson’s 2001 novel, Aftermath, I refer you back to the author’s Web site. UPDATE: The Crimespree Magazine blog now reports that DCI Banks will debut on PBS “in the 2nd week of January.”
• Prolific novelist James Reasoner is the subject of a new interview in the online pub Lowestoft Chronicle. To read it, click here. Meanwhile, Pittsburgh writer Kathleen George is interviewed by Jeff Rutherford as part of his Reading & Writing podcast. Listen here.
• After many delays, the complete series DVD set of McMillan & Wife (1971-1977)--starring Rock Hudson and Susan Saint James as a crime-solving police commissioner and his trouble-attracting spouse--is finally set for release tomorrow. It contains 24 discs and boasts a retail price of $169.99.
• Really? The TV series The Killing may return to AMC? What about rumors that this show would wind up instead on Netflix?
• Blogger Jen Forbus offers her nominations for “crime fiction’s sexiest female authors of 2012.” I can only assume that a compilation of male writers will soon be forthcoming.
• R.I.P., Charles E. Fritch, at one time the assistant editor of Mike Shayne Mystery Magazine. He passed away in October. UPDATE: William F. Nolan has penned a fine memorial to Fritch here.
• And here’s an unusual YouTube find: The 1972 teleflick The Hound of the Baskervilles. Adapted of course from Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s 1902 novel of that same name, this small-screen version of the tale featured English film actor Stewart Granger as Sherlock Holmes and Bernard Fox as Doctor John H. Watson. As I’ve explained before on this page, the movie (which also featured William Shatner) was a failed pilot for an ABC-TV series. I have watched this Hound twice, as I recall, but have not seen it in many years. If you would like a gander at it yourself, simply click here. I notice that the superior 1988 TV version of Hound, produced as part of Jeremy Brett’s wonderful Sherlock Holmes series, can also be viewed on YouTube. As can the 1939 theatrical rendition starring Basil Rathbone and Nigel Bruce. Hound of the Baskervilles fans (like me) could devote much of a day just to comparing these adaptations. Time well spent, I think.
• Does this 1945 novel by Richard Foster really feature “mysterydom’s only Tibetan-American private detective”?
• A few days ago, I featured in The Rap Sheet a Christmas episode of Man Against Crime, the 1949-1956 TV private-eye series. Today, the blog Classic American Showbiz leads us to a special 1974 Christmas episode of the police drama Adam-12.
• British-born Canadian author Peter Robinson reports on his Web site that DCI Banks, the UK TV production based on his long-running series of Inspector Alan Banks books, and starring Stephen Tompkinson, “is coming to PBS all across the United States.” Although I don’t yet see any notice of this development on PBS’s Web site, Robinson says the series will debut on this side of the Atlantic sometime in January. I’m very familiar with Robinson’s series (after interviewing the author for January Magazine more than decade ago) and have read a number of favorable notices about DCI Banks in Robin Jarossi’s Crime Time Preview blog. So this is a show I’d be very happy to add to my otherwise quite limited TV-watching schedule. To see a preview of DCI Banks’ pilot, based on Robinson’s 2001 novel, Aftermath, I refer you back to the author’s Web site. UPDATE: The Crimespree Magazine blog now reports that DCI Banks will debut on PBS “in the 2nd week of January.”
• Prolific novelist James Reasoner is the subject of a new interview in the online pub Lowestoft Chronicle. To read it, click here. Meanwhile, Pittsburgh writer Kathleen George is interviewed by Jeff Rutherford as part of his Reading & Writing podcast. Listen here.
• After many delays, the complete series DVD set of McMillan & Wife (1971-1977)--starring Rock Hudson and Susan Saint James as a crime-solving police commissioner and his trouble-attracting spouse--is finally set for release tomorrow. It contains 24 discs and boasts a retail price of $169.99.
• Really? The TV series The Killing may return to AMC? What about rumors that this show would wind up instead on Netflix?
• Blogger Jen Forbus offers her nominations for “crime fiction’s sexiest female authors of 2012.” I can only assume that a compilation of male writers will soon be forthcoming.
• R.I.P., Charles E. Fritch, at one time the assistant editor of Mike Shayne Mystery Magazine. He passed away in October. UPDATE: William F. Nolan has penned a fine memorial to Fritch here.
• And here’s an unusual YouTube find: The 1972 teleflick The Hound of the Baskervilles. Adapted of course from Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s 1902 novel of that same name, this small-screen version of the tale featured English film actor Stewart Granger as Sherlock Holmes and Bernard Fox as Doctor John H. Watson. As I’ve explained before on this page, the movie (which also featured William Shatner) was a failed pilot for an ABC-TV series. I have watched this Hound twice, as I recall, but have not seen it in many years. If you would like a gander at it yourself, simply click here. I notice that the superior 1988 TV version of Hound, produced as part of Jeremy Brett’s wonderful Sherlock Holmes series, can also be viewed on YouTube. As can the 1939 theatrical rendition starring Basil Rathbone and Nigel Bruce. Hound of the Baskervilles fans (like me) could devote much of a day just to comparing these adaptations. Time well spent, I think.
MWA Rewards Success
Authors Ken Follett and Margaret Maron have been named as 2013’s Grand Masters by the Mystery Writers of America. An MWA press release explains that this commendation “represents the pinnacle of achievement in mystery writing and was established to acknowledge important contributions to this genre, as well as a body of work that is both significant and of consistent high quality.”
Follett and Maron will receive their prizes during the Edgar Awards Banquet, to be held in New York City on May 2 of next year.
The 2012 Grand Master was Martha Grimes.
Also announced today were the winners of two other MWA prizes. The Mysterious Galaxy Bookstore (with branches in San Diego and Redondo Beach, California) and veteran newspaper journalist Oline Cogdill will both receive the 2013 Raven Awards. The Raven “recognizes outstanding achievement in the mystery field outside the realm of creative writing.”
Finally, the 2013 Ellery Queen Award goes to Johnny Temple, the founder and editor of Akashic Books, which is perhaps best known for its series of urban noir short-story collections (Manhattan Noir, Havana Noir, etc.). The MWA’s press release says the Ellery Queen Award “is given to editors or publishers who have distinguished themselves by their generous and wide-ranging support of the genre.”
(Hat tip to Mystery Fanfare.)
READ MORE: “MWA Grand Masters Ken Follett and Margaret Maron,” by Oline Cogdill (Mystery Scene).
Follett and Maron will receive their prizes during the Edgar Awards Banquet, to be held in New York City on May 2 of next year.
The 2012 Grand Master was Martha Grimes.
Also announced today were the winners of two other MWA prizes. The Mysterious Galaxy Bookstore (with branches in San Diego and Redondo Beach, California) and veteran newspaper journalist Oline Cogdill will both receive the 2013 Raven Awards. The Raven “recognizes outstanding achievement in the mystery field outside the realm of creative writing.”
Finally, the 2013 Ellery Queen Award goes to Johnny Temple, the founder and editor of Akashic Books, which is perhaps best known for its series of urban noir short-story collections (Manhattan Noir, Havana Noir, etc.). The MWA’s press release says the Ellery Queen Award “is given to editors or publishers who have distinguished themselves by their generous and wide-ranging support of the genre.”
(Hat tip to Mystery Fanfare.)
READ MORE: “MWA Grand Masters Ken Follett and Margaret Maron,” by Oline Cogdill (Mystery Scene).
Sunday, December 02, 2012
First Blush
This season holds particular significance for followers of fictional detective Sherlock Holmes. It was 125 years ago, in 1887, that Holmes and his chronicler, Doctor John Watson, made their first appearances in A Study in Scarlet,
a novel published in the paperback magazine Beeton’s Christmas Annual. That yarn had previously been called A Tangled Skein and 
featured sleuth Sherrinford Holmes, who shared rooms at 221B Upper Baker Street in London with a character called Ormond
Sacker. However, author Arthur Conan Doyle, at the time a physician with
a not terribly successful practice in Portsmouth, England, changed all of those
names prior to publication. Thank goodness.
Conan Doyle was paid a remarkably modest £25 for his work, which appeared again a year later in book form, complete with illustrations by the author’s father. Favorably reviewed by the prominent newspapers in Scotland, A Study in Scarlet would be followed by three more Holmes novels and 56 short stories, and help make Conan Doyle one of the world’s best-selling crime novelists.
If you’ve never read A Study in Scarlet ... first of all, shame on you! But if you would like to at least hear it being read, an audio recording of the book is available on YouTube. Click here for Chapter One.
READ MORE: “Sherlock at 125,” by Les Blatt (Classic Mysteries).
featured sleuth Sherrinford Holmes, who shared rooms at 221B Upper Baker Street in London with a character called Ormond
Sacker. However, author Arthur Conan Doyle, at the time a physician with
a not terribly successful practice in Portsmouth, England, changed all of those
names prior to publication. Thank goodness.Conan Doyle was paid a remarkably modest £25 for his work, which appeared again a year later in book form, complete with illustrations by the author’s father. Favorably reviewed by the prominent newspapers in Scotland, A Study in Scarlet would be followed by three more Holmes novels and 56 short stories, and help make Conan Doyle one of the world’s best-selling crime novelists.
If you’ve never read A Study in Scarlet ... first of all, shame on you! But if you would like to at least hear it being read, an audio recording of the book is available on YouTube. Click here for Chapter One.
READ MORE: “Sherlock at 125,” by Les Blatt (Classic Mysteries).
Season’s Scrollings
It’s not often that you will see British author and critic Mike Ripley sporting a jaunty scarlet Santa cap, but that’s exactly what he’s doing in the photograph at the top of his December “Getting Away with Murder” column for the e-zine Shots.
From there, the piece talks about “the welcome return of the Headline Crime Party”; Colin Bateman’s The Prisoner of Brenda, which Ripley dubs “the funniest novel of the year”; possible holiday gifts for crime-fiction fans; new novels from Paul Doherty, Robert Littell, Kerry Wilkinson, and Robert Wilson; and Ripley’s Shots of the Year awards.
Click here for the full download.
From there, the piece talks about “the welcome return of the Headline Crime Party”; Colin Bateman’s The Prisoner of Brenda, which Ripley dubs “the funniest novel of the year”; possible holiday gifts for crime-fiction fans; new novels from Paul Doherty, Robert Littell, Kerry Wilkinson, and Robert Wilson; and Ripley’s Shots of the Year awards.
Click here for the full download.
Carrying on Stout Traditions
Alaska crime novelist Dana Stabenow has been named the winner of the 2012 Nero Award for her 18th Kate Shugak mystery novel, Though Not Dead, published last year by Minotaur. The
Nero is given out annually by The Wolfe
Pack, a New York City-based organization devoted to Rex Stout’s Nero Wolfe detective yarns. That
commendation recognizes “the best American mystery written in the tradition of
Rex Stout's Nero Wolfe stories.”
Also in the running for this prize: Guilt by Association, by Marcia Clark (Mulholland); The Silent Girl, by Tess Gerritsen (Ballantine); The House of Silk, by Anthony Horowitz (Mulholland); Spiral, by Paul McEuen (The Dial Press); and Black Orchid Blues, by Persia Walker (Akashic).
A Wolfe Pack news release also explains that Robert Lopresti will receive this year’s Black Orchid Novella Award, which celebrates “the novella format popularized by Rex Stout.” Lopresti’s winning tale is titled “The Red Envelope.”
Congratulations to both winners!
Also in the running for this prize: Guilt by Association, by Marcia Clark (Mulholland); The Silent Girl, by Tess Gerritsen (Ballantine); The House of Silk, by Anthony Horowitz (Mulholland); Spiral, by Paul McEuen (The Dial Press); and Black Orchid Blues, by Persia Walker (Akashic).
A Wolfe Pack news release also explains that Robert Lopresti will receive this year’s Black Orchid Novella Award, which celebrates “the novella format popularized by Rex Stout.” Lopresti’s winning tale is titled “The Red Envelope.”
Congratulations to both winners!
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