Bullet Points: After Thanksgiving Edition

• The blog Crime Fiction Lover spent November celebrating displays of new talent in the genre. Today, it offers a recap of those posts, from its list of the “10 best crime debuts of 2013” and its look at 10 novels by self-published and indie authors, to its interview with Swedish author Anders de la Motte (Game).

• The HMSS Weblog reports that British leading man Lewis Collins, who starred in the ITV action drama The Professionals (1977-1983), and who later auditioned for the cinematic role of James Bond, died at his Los Angeles home last week. Collins was only 67 years old.

• Yep, it’s Cyber Monday. Today only, I’m told, every e-book in the Open Road Integrated Media catalogue is on sale--that’s more than 4,000 titles at discounts of up to 80 percent, including all of the publisher’s mysteries and thrillers.

• Following its recent glance back at the 1973 film The Long Goodbye, Film Noir of the Week now reconsiders another Raymond Chandler-inspired flick, 1975’s Farewell, My Lovely.

• This from Shotsmag Confidential: “According to The Bookseller, Company Pictures have optioned the TV rights to William McIlvanney’s Laidlaw trilogy. McIlvanney, who is often referred to as ‘the father of Tartan Noir,’ was also named writer of the year at the Glenfiddich Spirit of Scotland awards …”

• Truly, an obscure Edgar Allan Poe anniversary.

• The Guardian identifies its critics’ favorite noir films.

• Barry Forshaw, the well-known UK critic and editor, offers up his list of what he thinks were the best crime-related novels of 2013. I’m pleased to see that Robert Ryan’s Dead Man’s Land made Mr. Forshaw’s cut--as it did my own.

• Derringer Award-winning writer (and “forgotten books” champion) Patti Abbott answers 20 questions, some of them about her novel Home Invasion, in Dana King’s One Bite at a Time blog.

• And it’s good to see that President Barack Obama did his bit to support independent bookstores during this last weekend’s Small Business Saturday. The New York Daily News lists the many volumes he purchased--something seemingly for every age group.