Drawing on Various Sources

Every day, I spot intriguing news items or blog features (or obituaries) that I’d really like to share with Rap Sheet readers. Unfortunately, I have not had time recently to compile one of my signature giant “Bullet Points” posts. So I take what free hours I can to gather smaller collections of such reports, and hope they’ll do. For now.

• Organizers of the UK’s annual Capital Crime festival this week previewed the highlights of their 2022 gathering, which will take place live “in the shadow of [London’s] iconic Battersea Power Station” from September 29 to October 1. “Consisting of over 40 events and over 150 panelists,” reads a press release, “the line-up will include appearances from Peter James, Kate Mosse, Mark Billingham, Richard Osman, Robert Harris, S.A. Cosby, Dorothy Koomson, Jeffrey Archer, Anthony Horowitz, Charlie Higson, Jeffery Deaver, Lucy Foley, Bella Mackie, Ragnar Jónasson, Paula Hawkins, Reverend Richard Coles, Mark Edwards, Claire McGowan, Ben Aaronovitch and former President of the Supreme Court of the United Kingdom, Lady Hale, in conversation with Harriet Tyce.” A complete line-up of events is expected late this coming summer.

• This item comes from Vancouver, British Columbia, author Dietrich Kalteis (Under an Outlaw Moon):

There’s good news for fans of Canadian crime and mystery writing. From May 24-28 some of Canada’s top mystery writers will be gathering for the first ever Virtual Canadian Mystery Conference. The idea for a Canadian conference has been brewing for years, ever since the demise of Bloody Words, a fabulous meet-up of writers and fans. Out of the ashes of the old comes the Maple Leaf Mystery Conference. This year on Zoom and next year … one can only dream.

Scottish novelist Ian Rankin and Toronto’s Maureen Jennings (Murdoch Mysteries) are among the invited guests. Register online here.

• London-based Herb Lester Associates, which already counts among its elegant foldout-guide offerings maps of Raymond Chandler’s Los Angeles and Agatha Christie’s England, has a new product for sale. And its text was researched and composed by British author Martin Edwards! As Kate Jackson explains in Cross-Examining Crime, This Deadly Isle: A Golden Age Mystery Map includes 51 locations given significance in GA stories—“private houses, buildings involving the criminal justice system, department stores, political landmarks, key London streets and even royal abodes. The artwork continues to be brilliant and is one of the reasons these products are pleasing to collect. Lots of attention is given to little details, so the map is enjoyable at a visual level as well as on an information level. It is a great gift to self, but also to others who enjoy classic crime fiction.” The map retails for £12 and can be ordered online.

• Martin Edwards writes here about that map project’s history.

• Journalist/true-crime author Keith Roysdon’s latest contribution to CrimeReads is a delightful piece about the history of newspaper crime comic strips, “a once wildly popular, now mostly forgotten art.”

• From the “Fun Facts to Know and Tell” file: The 1965-1969 CBS-TV western/espionage series The Wild Wild West, which starred Robert Conrad as James West and Ross Martin as Artemus Gordon—both of them U.S. Secret Service agents—went through at least two name changes before reaching the air. According to the MeTV Web site, “Early in production, the pilot was called The Wild West. Playing off the character’s name, The Wild West West was also up for consideration and thankfully scrapped. That’s just confusing.” Collier Young, who produced several of the show’s early episodes, later claimed responsibility for adding the second “Wild” to its title.

• I’m very much enjoying Ben Boulden’s new blog, Dark City Underground. Last week he gathered together newspaper ads for 10 Alistair McLean thrillers that became big-screen films.

• And if you’re a Washington Post subscriber, this new Paul Waldman column is well worth reading. It begins: “In recent years, and especially since the pandemic began, we’ve seen an explosion of our already extraordinary levels of gun manufacturing and sales. If gun advocates—a group that includes pretty much the entire GOP—are correct in their oft-stated assertion that more guns means more safety, shouldn’t we be enjoying a paradise of security, with crime plunging to never-before-seen lows? This isn’t happening, of course. How can we explain this mystery?”