Bullet Points: Pre-Scotland Vote Edition

• Today marks 50 years since the London debut of Goldfinger, the third big-screen action film starring Sean Connery as Ian Fleming’s British super-spy, James Bond. As I noted in a previous post--complete with the motion picture’s opening title sequence--“the American release of Goldfinger didn’t come until December 22, 1964.” The HMSS Weblog has a bit more to say about Goldfinger here.

• 2014 year marked the first time contenders for the British Crime Writers’ Association’s Dagger in the Library award were selected by readers on the Web. With the nomination process having now concluded, here’s the longlist of writers who are vying for that prize (plus the names of their usual publishers):

-- M.C. Beaton (Constable & Robinson)
-- Tony Black (Black and White Publishing)
-- Sharon Bolton (Transworld Publishers)
-- Elly Griffiths (Quercus)
-- Mari Hannah (Pan)
-- James Oswald (Michael Joseph)
-- Phil Rickman (Corvus)
-- Leigh Russell (No Exit Press)
-- Mel Sherratt (Thomas & Mercer)
-- Neil White (Sphere)

The CWA explains that “Unlike most other literary prizes, the Dagger in the Library honours an author’s whole body of work to date, rather than a single title.” A shortlist of nominees will be announced on November 3, with the winner slated to be revealed during an event at Foyles Bookshop on Charing Cross Road, London, in late November. (Hat tip to the Euro Crime Blog.)

• Steve Aldous, who in July contributed an interesting and important piece to The Rap Sheet about Ernest Tidyman and the “ghost writers” he employed to create his seven novels about black New York City gumshoe John Shaft, directs our attention toward this interview with David F. Walker. Walker has been hired to write Dynamite Entertainment’s new line of Shaft comic books. “Some good news,” Aldous says, “in that Walker is a fan of the books and [is] using them as the basis for his writing. He is effectively doing an origins story, setting the [Dynamite] series a year before Tidyman’s novel.” The first Shaft comic produced by Walker and artist Bilquis Evely is due out in December, with a cover by Denys Cowan and Bill Sienkiewicz that you can preview right here. Walker has promised to post updates about his Shaft efforts in his own blog.

• Actress Julia McKenzie will return this coming Sunday evening as Agatha Christie’s popular spinster sleuth in the first of three new episodes of Miss Marple, all set to be broadcast over two weekends as part of PBS-TV’s Masterpiece Mystery! series.

• Scott Adlerberg has a nice piece in the blog Hardboiled Wonderland about the film adaptations of Patricia Highsmith’s novels.

• News from publisher New Pulp Press:

Starting January 1, 2015, Jon Bassoff, [the company’s] founder, will be handing over control and ownership of the award-winning press to Jonathan Woods and Shirrel Rhoades of Key West, Florida. While Jon Bassoff will still be associated with New Pulp Press in an advisory role, Jonathan Woods will be in charge of acquisitions and editorial matters. Shirrel Rhoades will take the lead on business, marketing and distribution.

Jonathan Woods, as a writer, has been associated with New Pulp Press since its early days. New Pulp Press has published three of his books, including the groundbreaking Bad Juju & Other Tales of Madness and Mayhem. ‘Jonathan shares the same warped sensibilities that I do,” said Jon Bassoff. “I look forward to seeing where he takes this rowdy little press next.”

Shirrel Rhoades has had a long and distinguished career in publishing, including a stint as EVP and Publisher of Marvel Comics. He currently owns and manages an eBook publishing business called Absolutely Amazing eBooks that publishes a broad range of titles from horror to humor, non-fiction to mystery. “Shirrel’s marketing expertise and his existing publishing business will competitively enhance New Pulp Press and bring its writers to a wider audience,” said Bassoff.

• If you haven’t yet noticed, Criminal Element contributor Jake Hinkson has spent early September celebrating the four classic films in which Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall appeared together. Here are the links: To Have and Have Not (1944), The Big Sleep (1946), Dark Passage (1947), and Key Largo (1948).

• Speaking of the late Ms. Bacall, the blog Down These Mean Streets offers a link to an episode of the Lux Radio Theatre from 1946 in which she and Bogie give voice to a “wireless” adaptation of Ernest Hemingway’s To Have and Have Not.

• I admit, I haven’t watched the USA Network crime drama White Collar lately, and probably not since the delightful Hilarie Burton bowed out of her recurring role on that show as insurance company investigator Sara Ellis. So I was surprised to learn, from Crimespree Magazine’s blog, that the series’ sixth and concluding season will begin on Thursday, November 6. Wow, it seems like only yesterday that White Collar had its premiere …

• Happy fourth birthday to The Nick Carter & Carter Brown Blog!

• Interviews worth reading: Libby Fischer Hellmann (Nobody’s Child) answers questions from Omnimystery News; Benjamin Whitmer (Cry Father) chats with MysteryPeople; Reed Farrel Coleman (Robert B. Parker’s Blind Spot) goes a round with Crimespree; and Chelsea Cain (One Kick) responds to queries fielded by Lit Reactor.

• Crime Fiction Lover continues its “Classics in September” series with remarks on Adam Hall’s The Quiller Memorandum, Ngaio Marsh’s best books, and a critic’s selection of the “20 Greatest Crime Movies of All Time.” Links to the whole series are being collected here.

• The Blogger software has finally forced our list of new crime fiction, due out between now and December 31, off of The Rap Sheet’s front page. (It apparently doesn’t like lengthy posts stacking up for too long.) However, you can still study that catalogue of more than 275 titles here. Prepare to expand your to-be-read pile!

• Is this Nero Wolfe’s old Manhattan brownstone?

• We’d heard that new publisher Brash Books would be reprinting W.L. Ripley’s original three novels featuring football player turned troubleshooter Wyatt Storme (who debuted in 1993’s Dreamsicle). But now Brash reports that it will also bring out a brand-new Storme tale, Storme Warning. All four are due in bookstores in early 2015.

• Registration for ThrillerFest 2015, to be held (as usual) in New York City from July 7 to 11 of next year, is now open. Next year’s ThrillerMaster will be Nelson DeMille.

• Patti Abbott’s 2015 debut as a novelist (with Concrete Angel) will be abetted by a very fine-looking book cover.

• Critics At Large writer Nick Coccoma isn’t thrilled with Dennis Lehane’s new big-screen movie. “The Drop has some of the finer performances of American society’s white urban underclass we’ve seen in a long time,” he writes, “maybe even since Brando and his crew. In the end, it adds up to a frustrating, wasteful nothing.” UPDATE: Michael Carlson is much fonder of Lehane’s book version.

• The Chill remains one of my favorite Ross Macdonald novels.

• And this sounds mildly intriguing. In Reference to Murder reports that “Shondaland productions and Person of Interest co-executive producer David Slack are teaming up for an ensemble [TV] cop drama titled Protect and Survive that centers on the last LAPD precinct fighting to hang on in Los Angeles after a massive disaster.”