The Mystery of Dana Wilson

(Editor’s note: Randal S. Brandt’s fine work has graced both this blog and Killer Covers before, in posts about the inspiration behind David Dodge’s To Catch a Thief, the 1961 Dodge novel Carambola, and paperback cover artist Robert Stanley. Today, he profiles an obscure American mystery writer named Dana Wilson. “I've uncovered a fascinating story,” he told me in pitching this piece. “Hint: after her second marriage she changed her last name to Broccoli.” “Fascinating” is definitely the adjective to describe the results of his digging.)

Before I tell you this story—a story about the literary mystery surrounding a crime novel with one of the strangest titles of all time and the genealogical research that led to its connection to the original James Bond girl—I must tell you a little bit about myself.

I’m a librarian at the University of California, Berkeley, where I am Head of Cataloging at the Bancroft Library, the university’s primary special collections and rare books library. As the flagship campus of the University of California system, Berkeley has a long tradition of collecting the literature of California and, since 2013, I have also served as the curator of the California Detective Fiction Collection. This means that I get a small budget to acquire titles of crime and mystery fiction that are set in California. A book that I acquired recently for the collection, with a decidedly odd title, made me take on a third role; I had to put on my fedora and play literary detective to solve the surprising mystery of its author, Dana Wilson.

Dana Wilson published exactly one crime novel. That book, Make with the Brains, Pierre, appeared in 1946 under the Julian Messner imprint. The story is narrated by Pierre Bernet, a French “film cutter” who emigrated to Hollywood to escape the Nazi occupation of France and has been unable to secure work for several years. Finding himself in the middle of a romantic triangle—Pierre is desperately in love with Eleanor, an aspiring young actress, but Eleanor is in love with Joe, who also loves Eleanor but is married and refuses to seek a divorce—Pierre gets involved in a blackmail plot that leads to murder.

Bill Pronzini reviewed the book in 1001 Midnights: The Aficionado’s Guide to Mystery and Detective Fiction and opined that, “despite having one of crime fiction’s worst and most misleading titles,” it is “neither a bad nor a whimsical nor a detective novel” but rather “a grim tale of psychological suspense reminiscent of the work of Cornell Woolrich in its incisive examination of a man destroyed by love, hate, and the dark side of his own soul.” He concluded by declaring the tale “a surprising accomplishment in its evocation of the Gallic character, the postwar Hollywood lifestyle, and the elements of human tragedy.” (Pronzini and Muller 1986, 855)

As I began working on the catalogue record for this novel (library cataloguing is essentially recording and describing a library’s holdings in order to provide access to readers and researchers), I kept coming back to a key question: Who is Dana Wilson?

The book itself, including the original dust jacket, was no help at all. There is no author’s biography, photograph, or blurb on this edition. I didn’t even know if Dana was a man or a woman (and apparently Pronzini didn’t either, as the 1001 Midnights entry is gender-neutral), or whether the name was real or a pseudonym. The Library of Congress, usually the authority on matters of book authorship, was no help whatsoever here. In its catalogue, the novel was entered under the simple heading of “Wilson, Dana,” which was linked to a composer and professor of music born in 1946. Nope, definitely not the author of this 1946 novel. The database contained entries for several other similarly named writers, but none were the one I was looking for. Disambiguating authors from one another and identifying them with the works that they produce is called, in library parlance, “authority control” and is a critical component of cataloguing, so I was determined to do something to distinguish Dana Wilson the mystery writer from the other Dana Wilsons. I turned next to another, usually reliable resource: Allen J. Hubin’s Crime Fiction IV bibliography. Alas, Hubin was no help either, as no additional biographical details were included there.

(Left) Dana Wilson in the 1940s.

“Dana Wilson” is a pretty generic name, and I thought that, without any other data points, I would have a hard time closing in on likely authors using genealogical resources available via the Ancestry database, which has provided me with a wealth of information for tracing authors’ identities. I was just about to give up hope of uncovering this mysterious writer’s identity when I looked through the book one more time and noticed that it contained a dedication, “To Stella, Michael, and Lewis.” Family members? Perhaps Stella was the author’s wife, and Michael and Lewis, his sons? Armed with this additional bit of potential information, I decided to give Ancestry a whirl.

One of the first results that came up was for the recently released 1950 U.S. Census. The record I found was for a Dana Wilson living in Los Angeles and working as a “screen treatments writer” in the movie industry, which seemed a likely occupation for the author of Make with the Brains, Pierre, given the inside-Hollywood angle of the novel. This Dana was female, aged 26, and listed in the census as “wife,” along with Lewis G. Wilson, as head of the household; the census also listed an 8-year-old son, Michael G. Wilson, and a mother-in-law, Stella Natol. I felt pretty confident that I’d found my Dana. What would be the odds of another family quartet with those names? The only thing that surprised me was Dana’s age. If she was 26 in 1950, that meant she would have been only 22 when her novel was published—and she was the mother of a young child at the time!

My second surprise came when I did another search in Ancestry, this time adding an approximate birth date of 1924 and her maiden name, Natol. I immediately landed on the 2004 death record of “Dana Dorothy Natol Broccoli.” The information there included that she was the widow of American film producer Albert R. Broccoli and the mother of Michael G. Wilson and Barbara Broccoli.

Wait. What?

As a longtime fan of the James Bond books and films, I immediately recognized the name Albert R. Broccoli. Broccoli and his partner Harry Saltzman were the producers behind the cinematic adaptations of Ian Fleming’s James Bond novels. Now, my search took a completely different turn.

A Wikipedia page dedicated to Dana Broccoli revealed more information. It said that she was born Dana Natol in New York City on January 3, 1922 (making her the ripe old age of 24 when her novel was published), and met her first husband, Lewis Wilson, when they were both acting students at the American Academy of Dramatic Arts at Carnegie Hall. After Dana and Lewis divorced, she married Albert R. “Cubby” Broccoli in 1959. When Broccoli and Saltzman formed a holding company to control the licensing and rights to the Bond films, they named it Danjaq S.A., which is a combination of their wives’ first names (Dana Broccoli and Jacqueline Saltzman). After Cubby’s death in 1996, Dana became president of Danjaq and was instrumental in developing the musical theater version of another Ian Fleming work, Chitty Chitty Bang Bang. She died at age 82 of cancer on February 29, 2004. Wikipedia also mentioned that Dana had written two novels, Scenario for Murder (1949) and Florinda (1977).

(Right) Scenario for Murder, 1949.

Hubin gives “Scenario for Murder” as the British title of Make with the Brains, Pierre, and the dust jacket of that edition does include an author photograph, depicting an attractive young woman, and a biographical sketch. So that solves the mystery of Dana Wilson.

Or, does it?

Further digging revealed that Dana Wilson Broccoli was a complex woman who led a fascinating life and had a lasting impact on one of the most iconic film series of all time.

It turns out that Dana was actually born Dorothy K. Natoli into an Italian-Irish family in Brooklyn (I haven’t been able to discover what the “K” stands for). Her parents were Giuseppe “Joseph” Natoli and Stella (White) Natoli. Her father was the son of Italian immigrants and a veteran of World War I. Shortly after Dana’s birth, the family name was shortened to Natol, but at the time of her marriage to Lewis Gilbert Wilson on June 7, 1941 (when she was 19 years old), she was still using Dorothy as her first name. The following year their son, Michael, was born in New York.

She likely changed her name to Dana after they moved to Los Angeles to pursue careers in Hollywood. Lewis was first to achieve some level of success. After a couple of bit parts in movies, including one in which he wasn’t even credited, he got his big break. In 1943, Columbia Pictures created the first live-action depiction of the DC Comics superhero Batman in a 15-part serial, and Lewis was cast in the titular role, giving him the distinction of being the first actor ever to portray the Caped Crusader. He then landed several other small parts in various films in 1943 and 1944, but his acting career was put on hold when he enlisted in the U.S. Army on June 27, 1944.

(Above) Douglas Croft and Lewis Wilson played Robin and Batman, respectively, in Columbia Pictures’ Batman film serial.

After Dana’s death, several obituaries reported that their long time apart during World War II had led to the failure of Lewis and Dana’s marriage. Later, during an interview, Dana confirmed that the separation was a turning point in their relationship: “Being separated with the war for five years just changed everything. And when my husband returned, we were two entirely different people. It was inevitable that we would divorce.” (Cork 2000)

However, the exact date of their divorce is unknown. In his autobiography Fragments, film director Andre de Toth, a longtime friend of the Broccolis, recalled meeting Dana “in Hollywood, years before she met Cubby,” remembering her as “a budding writer with a promising future, a single parent bringing up a son,” and noting that “in the forties [that] took guts.” (De Toth 1994, 460) However, aside from the fact that they appeared as a family in the 1950 census, there is evidence that their relationship continued at least into the early 1950s, and de Toth got either his timeline or Dana’s marital status wrong. Lewis remarried in 1956.

What is known is that it was during the war that Dana turned her hand to novel writing. Following the 1946 hardcover publication of Make with the Brains, Pierre, with its dedication to her mother, son, and husband, two cheap paperback editions appeared in 1948 and 1949, re-titled as Uneasy Virtue. Then, also in 1949, the British hardcover came out, this time re-titled as Scenario for Murder, with its dust jacket author blurb identifying her as a “wife, mother, actress and producer” living “in Hollywood with her actor-producer husband and small son.”

In 1950, Dana Wilson’s Hollywood acting career got started with a bit part in a film noir called Once a Thief starring Cesar Romero and June Havoc. Then, in 1951, Dana won her first (and only) lead role, as the Queen in Wild Women, opposite Lewis, who also had a lead role. If they were still married at the time, and if Lewis had anything to do with Dana taking that part, that truly awful film could very well have provided ample grounds for divorce.

(Left) Dana Wilson starred in 1951’s Wild Women.

Also, in 1951, both Dana and Lewis were cast in Trigger Tales, the half-hour pilot for a Western TV series that was not picked up. Dana had the supporting female role, in which she turned out to be the villain, but Lewis had a blink-and-you-miss-it appearance with barely a word of dialogue (although he did get to show off the stage-fighting skills he’d honed as Batman in a brief but rowdy dustup with the hero, Trigger Saunders). Then, Lewis got another big break when he was cast as a regular in the half-hour TV crime series Craig Kennedy, Criminologist. Although Donald Woods had the title role, Lewis, as newspaper reporter Walt Jameson, and Sydney Mason, playing New York City police Inspector J.J. Burke, shared nearly as much screen time. The series was short-lived, however, airing for one season (1952-1953) of 26 episodes. Dana guest-starred in one of the episodes near the end of the run.

Dana first met Albert R. “Cubby” Broccoli in December 1947. Struggling to earn a living in the movie business, Cubby decided to make some extra cash that year by trying his hand at selling Christmas trees on a street corner in the upscale L.A. suburb of Beverly Hills. In his posthumously published memoir, When the Snow Melts (1998), he described the “incredible, memorable coincidence” that occurred during his brief time in that job:

Early one evening, just before Christmas, a stunning-looking lady stopped at my lot to buy a tree. She had her small son with her. She had raven-black hair, large eyes and pale, delicate features. Having chosen a tree, she wondered where she could get a stand for it. I offered to make one for her, nailing a couple of crossed boards together and then pinning the tree to it. We wished each other ‘Happy Christmas’ and she walked away into the night. No reason for me to believe I’d ever see her again. To chic beauties of that class, when you’ve seen one Christmas tree salesman you’ve seen them all. But not in this particular scenario.

For that lady, my lovely Dana, and I were destined to meet again twelve years later. She remembers my selling her that tree on the corner of Wilshire and Doheny. I recall it even more vividly. There are some customers you just cannot forget. (Broccoli 1998, 84)

The pair re-encountered each other in 1958, at a New Year’s Eve party at the Flamingo Hotel in Las Vegas, and at least on Cubby’s end, it was love at second sight. Cubby was a widower, his wife Nedra having succumbed to cancer two years earlier, and a single father of two young children. He got Dana’s phone number before the night was out, but they did not get together again until a few months later, again by chance and this time in New York—they were both out with other dates. They made arrangements to meet once more back in Los Angeles, and after a five-week courtship, they were married on June 21, 1959. The wedding was in Las Vegas. Cary Grant was best man, and Dana’s 16-year-old son, Michael, who had spent the night before the wedding on the town with Cubby, was a hungover member of the wedding party. (Broccoli 1998, 140-41) With both her son and fiancé suffering the effects of the stag night, Dana had a chance at a very different future when Cary Grant came to tell her about the situation. “I did a film once,” he said, “where the best man ran off with the bride. How about it?” Dana laughed off the proposition. “As tempting as it may sound, I don’t think it’s going to happen this time.” (Cork 2000; Sellers 2019, 40)

(Right) “Cubby” Broccoli.

That Las Vegas ceremony was the start of a stunning second act for Dana Wilson. “I married Cubby,” she recalled, “and my life changed completely. I left my home in California. I left my country. I left my friends. I left everything that was familiar to me … But I followed Cubby [to London] and I trusted him, and I knew he was going to make everything all right.” (Cork 2000)

Dana immediately threw herself into her new role. She had always hoped to have a large family and insisted on formally adopting Cubby’s two children, Tony and Tina. On June 18, 1960, Dana gave birth to a daughter, Barbara Dana Broccoli, and, as Cubby wrote, “now [the] family was complete.” (Broccoli 1998, 147)

It was at about this time that Cubby met Harry Saltzman. Cubby had long wanted to film Fleming’s James Bond novels, but had never been able to secure the option. Saltzman had the option, which was about to expire, but could not convince anyone to finance him. Cubby had the connections in Hollywood to get the project off the ground and the pair entered into a partnership. They inked a deal with United Artists for $1 million on June 21, 1961 (Cubby and Dana’s second wedding anniversary), and the rest is movie history. (Broccoli 1998, 151-153)

Although Dana’s name never appears in the credits of any Bond film, she was an active behind-the-scenes partner to her husband and her fingerprints are all over the series:

• When Cubby and Harry were casting the lead role in Dr. No, they became interested in a young Scotsman with limited screen credits named Sean Connery. There are many versions of how Connery came to the producers’ attention, but it is generally accepted that the key to him getting the part lay with Dana Broccoli. (Pfeiffer and Lisa 1993, 14, 42, 55) Cubby thought he had terrific potential, but was unsure that he had the requisite sex appeal to play James Bond. So he asked Dana to take a look at the only footage he had available of Connery, the 1959 Disney film Darby O’Gill and the Little People. “Dana’s reaction,” Cubby recalled, “was immediate: ‘That’s our Bond!’” (Broccoli 1998, 165; Duncan 2015, 33) Dana confirmed this story: “I was just knocked out by [Connery]. I thought he was just incredible.” (Cork 2000; Field and Chowdhury 2015, 60)

• As a writer herself, Dana contributed to several scripts, making practical, informed, and helpful suggestions. As they struggled to put together a script for The Spy Who Loved Me (14 writers had tried and failed to come up with a coherent story), Cubby and Dana, themselves, “sat and talked for hours, with Dana scribbling ideas down on paper” and “rewrote the whole story.” When they presented their new screenplay to director Lewis Gilbert, he “said it was the first time a producer had come to him with a storyline that worked.” (Duncan 2015, 262) Barbara Broccoli later claimed that “all the major decisions [Cubby] made he discussed with her. It was a real partnership.” (Sellers 2019, 114; Cork 2000)

(Above) Maryam d'Abo, Timothy Dalton, Barbara Broccoli, Albert R. Broccoli, Dana Broccoli, and John Glen attend an event celebrating the release of the Bond film The Living Daylights (1987).

• Dana often functioned as an unofficial casting director. In For Your Eyes Only, she recommended Topol for his role and gave final approval on casting Julian Glover. (Field and Chowdhury 2015, 328-29) She “was absolutely convinced from the start that [Timothy Dalton] would make a first-class Bond” and pressed Cubby to cast him as Roger Moore’s successor; and she helped convince Dalton to accept the role. (Broccoli 1998, 280-81) Many of the actresses in the series remember that she was part of the casting process and had some influence in how the women were portrayed. (d’Abo and Cork 2003, 174)

• She provided unswerving support and expert advice to Cubby during his legal battles with Harry Saltzman. The breakup of the Broccoli-Saltzman partnership in 1975 was marked by accusations, lawsuits, and hard feelings. Michael Wilson, who had spent the previous two years at a prestigious Washington, D.C., law firm, came to London to help on the legal side, and Cubby credited Dana with giving him the strength to see it through: “But for Dana’s fantastic resources and devotion, I might have thrown in the towel. As it was, we took on the battle of a lifetime—and won.” (Broccoli 1998, 231)

• On December 5, 1976, Dana christened the 007 Stage at Pinewood Studios, which had been constructed specially for the filming of The Spy Who Loved Me, by breaking a bottle of champagne over the conning tower of the American submarine. (Owen and Burford 2000, 119)

• At the 1982 Oscars ceremony, the Academy bestowed its highest honor, the Irving G. Thalberg Award, on Cubby Broccoli. Roger Moore, who was in the middle of his long run portraying James Bond, was tasked with making the presentation. As Moore remembered, Cubby and Dana “were terrified that I would make light of the situation and say something silly.” Consequently, during rehearsals, “Dana sat right at the front of the auditorium to ensure I stuck to the script. I did indeed stick to the script, and Cubby accepted his award with great pride and modesty.” (Moore 2008, 244-45)

• Following Cubby’s death in 1996, Dana assumed the leadership of Danjaq and oversaw the transition of production duties to her children, Michael G. Wilson and Barbara Broccoli, who are still running the operation today.

Curiously, aside from that brief mention of the British title, Scenario for Murder, on Dana’s Wikipedia page, none of the sources that I uncovered refer in any way to Make with the Brains, Pierre. In 1977, Dana returned to fiction writing, penning Florinda, a historical novel set in 8th-century Spain, which was apparently inspired while scouting locations for the Bond series. Even the dust jacket copy of that book claims that it was her first novel. And, unlike Pierre, Florinda at least merits a mention in Cubby’s autobiography. Dana, herself, adapted the novel into a musical that had a modestly successful run in Los Angeles in 1995 and was revived as La Cava, which played in London’s West End in 2000-2001.

(Left) The 1977 novel Florinda, with cover art by Robert McGinnis.

Nothing in my previous experience in identifying crime writers and expanding on their biographies had prepared me for what I would find when I went looking for Dana Wilson, the author of an obscure 1940s Hollywood mystery novel. I found a young woman who carved out a career for herself in Hollywood, as both a writer and an actor, who turned her talents to psychological suspense fiction and made her way as a single mother. Then, in her stunning second act, she became one of the architects of the most famous and successful film franchise in history. Not only did Dana Natol Wilson Broccoli live twice, she was the original Bond girl.

SOURCES
Broccoli, Albert R., with Donald Zec. 1998. When the Snow Melts: The Autobiography of Cubby Broccoli. London: Boxtree.

Cork, John, dir. 2000. “Cubby Broccoli: The Man Behind Bond.” Diamonds Are Forever, Blu-ray Disc. Directed by Guy Hamilton. Beverly Hills, CA: Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Studios, Inc., 2012.

d’Abo, Maryam, and John Cork. 2003. Bond Girls Are Forever: The Women of James Bond. New York: Harry N. Abrams, Inc.

De Toth, Andre. 1994. Fragments: Portraits from the Inside. London: Faber and Faber.

Field, Matthew, and Ajay Chowdhury. 2015. Some Kind of Hero, 007: The Remarkable Story of the James Bond Films. Gloucestershire: The History Press.

Duncan, Paul, ed. 2015. The James Bond Archives. Cologne: Taschen.

Moore, Roger, with Gareth Owen. 2008. My Word Is My Bond: A Memoir. New York: Collins.

Owen, Gareth, and Brian Burford. 2000. The Pinewood Story: The Authorised History of the World’s Most Famous Film Studio. London: Reynolds & Hearn Ltd.

Pfeiffer, Lee, and Philip Lisa. 1993. The Films of Sean Connery. New York: Carol Publishing Group.

Pronzini, Bill, and Marcia Muller. 1986. 1001 Midnights: The Aficionado’s Guide to Mystery and Detective Fiction. New York: Arbor House.

Sellers, Robert. 2019. When Harry Met Cubby: The Story of the James Bond Producers. Gloucestershire: The History Press.

STREAMING VIDEO
Batman
Release date: July 16, 1943
Trailer on YouTube: https://youtu.be/dyXp-8ZZkbg?si=HZ-hgukOpnDfgLMd (other trailers available)
Full film on Tubi: https://tubitv.com/movies/636895/batman>

Once a Thief (1950)
Release date: July 7, 1950
Full film on Internet Archive: https://archive.org/details/once-a-thief

Wild Women, aka Bowanga, Bowanga: White Sirens of Africa (1951)
Release date: September 23, 1951
Clip on YouTube: https://youtu.be/hCdORg973bU?si=WEDvkkm4D6Hz-5Au (featuring Dana Wilson as the Queen and Lewis Wilson as the “strong white man”)
Full film on Plex: https://watch.plex.tv/movie/wild-women
Full film on Internet Archive: https://archive.org/details/BowangaBowangaA.k.a.WildWomen

“Gun Blazers,” episode of Trigger Tales (1951)
Full film on YouTube: https://youtu.be/MPOJL-KfQv0?si=B-GGn40biOyDhzXo (fight scene starts at 13:45)

“The Golden Dagger,” S1, E24, Craig Kennedy, Criminologist (1952)
This episode is not available, but several others, all prominently featuring Lewis Wilson, can be found on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLY0ESviuN3DqTvOjrHh6uSE-OiE80_iy1

READ MORE: “Inside the Family Behind the James Bond Empire,” by Cari Beauchamp (Town & Country).

Bullet Points: From All Corners Edition

(Above) J. Robert Janes signs his books at Bouchercon 2014.

• Canadian novelist J. Robert Janes has long ranked among my favorite historical crime-fictionists. His 16-volume, World War II-set series starring Jean-Louis St-Cyr, a chief inspector with the French Sûreté, and his unlikely investigative partner, Detektiv Inspektor Hermann Kohler of the Nazi Gestapo, began with 1992’s Mayhem (aka Mirage) and continued through 2015’s Clandestine. Naturally, I have devoured the whole lot, plus Jones standalones such as The Hunting Ground (2013) and The Sleeper (2015). I had the delightful opportunity a decade ago to interview Janes for Kirkus Reviews and The Rap Sheet, and I finally met him at the 2014 Bouchercon convention in Long Beach, California. Back then, he said he was busy composing more novels, and in fact his old Web site proclaimed that a 17th St-Cyr/Kohler novel, Timeweaver, “now awaits a final read. The 18th St-Cyr and Kohler may well conclude the series, but that remains to be seen.” So whatever happened to those promised installments? I recently e-mailed Janes—who lives near Toronto, Ontario, and will turn 86 years old on May 23—to see how he’s doing. His response:

At my age now I’m lucky to be able to manage 18 blocks with my push chair. There are fortunately two little book kiosks en route, so I am able to get a few books now and then, and that kind of keeps me going. As to writing anything more, that’s really hard work and I’m totally retired, and reading the work of others finally, after all these years! You see, when I was writing I didn’t read other fiction because one can pick things up so easily and not even know they’ve done so. Therefore, I was just being careful. As for anybody at my age, my medical conditions are a real damper to doing a lot, and I’m very content just to go for my walks, read fiction books by others, and settle down with a cup of tea.

Janes’ wife of 64 years, Gracia, subsequently sent me an e-mail message, explaining that her husband’s health is fragile, that he suffers from “cancer and congenital heart failure.” She added, “He has retired knowing that he has published 34 books in four different genres (i.e., geology texts for elementary through university levels, children’s fiction, thrillers, and the 16-book St Cyr and Kohler series, and three other co-published books). All the words he has ever written are housed in over 140 boxes in the McMaster University Archives,” in Hamilton, Ontario. As to the existence of that 17th St-Cyr/Kohler novel? Well, Gracia says, “Timeweaver presents a puzzle”—and perhaps one that her husband cannot help solve. “Bob has a reluctance to talk about his books,” she confides, “as it saddens him that he is no longer able to write,” after more than three decades spent behind a keyboard, pounding out stories. She suggests the manuscript may be in the McMaster archives, “but not catalogued yet.” She continues to look. I’ll provide any updates Gracia shoots my way.

• Whenever a writer publishes a list purporting to name the “best” of anything, he or she becomes an immediate target of criticism. So it’s no surprise that this recent selection of “the 30 greatest literary detectives of all time,” by ShortList’s Marc Chacksfield, has attracted detractors. Among the sleuths included in Chacksfield’s tally: Sherlock Holmes, Hercule Poirot, Philip Marlowe, Inspector Morse, Lew Archer, and Father Brown. Single-appearance players such as William of Baskerville (from Umberto Eco’s The Name of the Rose), Inspector Bucket (from Charles Dickens’ Bleak House), and Smilla Qaaviqaaq Jaspersen (the star of Peter Høeg’s Smilla’s Sense of Snow) also scored spots on the list, which has predictably stirred questions about why figures such as Ellery Queen, Lord Peter Wimsey, Miss Maud Silver, and—for goodness sakes!—Nero Wolfe didn’t make the cut.

• The Sisters in Crime organization has launched its new Pride Award for Emerging LGBTQIA+ Crime Writers. As Oline H. Cogdill explains in the Mystery Scene blog, “A $2,000 grant will be awarded to an up-and-coming writer who identifies as part of the LGBTQIA+ community. … Candidates must apply by March 15, 2021. The winner will be announced in April, 2021.” Registration information is available here.

• With the 80th anniversary of the release of director John Huston’s The Maltese Falcon coming in October 2021, David Walsh, arts editor of the World Socialist Web Site, has posted this excellent assessment of the movie’s history and importance, its messages, and how its development fit into Huston’s filmmaking evolution.

• The Guardian’s Guy Lodge takes advantage of 2021 being the 100th anniversary of author Patricia Highsmith’s birth by highlighting the best film adaptations of her work. He reminds us, too, that “A glossy new Ben Affleck-starring film of her novel Deep Water, the first film from Adrian Lyne in 19 years, is scheduled for August, while a TV version of Ripley, starring Andrew Scott as her most adaptable character, is in the pipeline.”

• Like so many other literary festivals, Granite Noir is moving online this year. According to Shotsmag Confidential, Aberdeen, Scotland’s fifth annual celebration of homegrown and international crime writing will be streamed on the Aberdeen Performing Arts site from Friday, February 19, through Sunday the 21st. Ian Rankin, Camilla Läckberg, Stuart MacBride, Peter May, Jo Nesbø, Attica Locke, and David Baldacci are among the writers scheduled to participate. Click here to find a PDF containing the full roster of events.

• Then on Saturday, March 20, Hull Noir will return as a day-long festival based in the English port city of Kingston upon Hull. This year’s guests includes Mark Billingham, Laura Shepherd-Robinson, “Alex North” (aka Steve Mosby), and Hull-born Ian McGuire. The event will recognize, as well, this year’s “50th anniversary of the British crime [film] classic, Get Carter—adapted from Ted Lewis’s seminal crime novel Jack’s Return Home. For Lewis, who studied at Hull Art School in the late 1950s and whose novels reference the city and its hinterland, the towns on the south bank of the Humber, and the bleak Lincolnshire coast, 2021 is also the 50th anniversary of his novel Plender, this year’s festival read.” As Shotsmag Confidential notes, “There’ll be no charge for tickets, which will be available from Sunday 21 February along with the full festival lineup. Follow the Hull Noir Facebook and Twitter (@hullnoir) for all the most up to date information.”

• Here’s something I didn’t know: James Hong is a phenomenally prolific American actor, born to Hong Kongese parents, whose performance credits include roles in everything from Richard Diamond, Private Eye and Hawaii Five-O to Kung Fu, The Rockford Files, Switch, and the 1974 film Chinatown. He is also, according to blogger Lou Armagno, “the last living actor to portray a son (or daughter) of the fictional detective [Charlie Chan] in either a television series or film.” Hong was cast as “Number One Son” Barry Chan in the 1957-1958 TV drama The New Adventures of Charlie Chan, starring J. Carrol Naish. Hong will welcome his 92nd birthday this coming February 22nd.

• After applauding Robert McGinnis’ 93rd birthday two years ago in this longish piece for CrimeReads, I somehow managed to forget the artist’s 95th birthday this last Thursday, February 3. Fortunately, Deuce Richardson stepped up with a proper tribute in the DMR Books blog. After acknowledging McGinnis as “a national treasure,” Richardson reminds us that “He’s painted iconic characters ranging from James Bond to Barbarella to Captain America. He’s done covers for authors such as Rafael Sabatini, Neil Gaiman, John Jakes, Gardner F. Fox, Donald Westlake and Ian Fleming … and he’s still at it.” The DMR piece comes with a dozen beautiful examples of McGinnis’ work.



• By the way, whilst prowling around the Web early last week, I stumbled across a fake book front for Twilight Gal, created in imitation of one of McGinnis’ most famous covers, from the 1960 Dell paperback edition of Kill Now, Pay Later, by Robert Kyle. The artist here identifies him- or herself only as “astoralexander,” but explains that Twilight Gal re-imagines the video game The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess “as a hard-boiled crime novel.” Both McGinnis’ cover and astroalexander’s respectful knock-off are above.

• My wife and I are currently in the midst of watching the first five episodes of Netflix’s French mystery thriller, Lupin. So I was interested to read, in B.V. Lawson’s In Reference to Murder, that the show “is returning to Netflix for its second half of season one this summer. The series has become a surprising hit for the streamer, with 70M households projected to watch since its launch on January 8, making it easily Netflix’s biggest French original. The project is a contemporary adaptation of the novels penned by French writer Maurice Leblanc and stars Omar Sy as Assane Diop, who uses the world-famous gentleman thief and master of disguise, Arsène Lupin, as his inspiration as he tries to get revenge on those responsible for his father’s death.”

• While we’re on the subject of Netflix, let me point you to this piece in The Killing Times, containing the first trailer for Behind Her Eyes, a six-part TV adaptation of Sarah Pinborough’s 2017 novel of that same name. The KT’s Paul Hirons says this program “stars Eve Hewson, Simona Brown, Tom Bateman and Robert Aramayo, and tells the story of a single mother, whose world is thrown off kilter when she begins an affair with her new boss David and matters take an even stranger turn when she’s drawn into an unlikely friendship with his wife Adele. What starts as an unconventional love triangle soon becomes a dark, psychological tale of suspense and twisted revelations, as Louise finds herself caught in a dangerous web of secrets where nothing and no-one is what they seem.” Behind Her Eyes drops on February 17.

• Another promising trailer is that of Bloodlands, a BBC One mini-series starring “James Nesbitt as a Northern Irish detective on the hunt for a serial killer known as Goliath ...,” explains Radio Times. “In the 40-second trailer we meet detective Tom Brannick (Nesbitt) as he picks up a 20-year-old investigation into [the] ‘possible assassin’ they called Goliath and reveals to his team that the killer at large murdered his wife.” There doesn’t appear to be a set premiere date yet for Bloodlands; Radio Times says to expect it “later in the year.”

• John Porter reports in The Verge that delays in releasing No Time to Die, the 25th James Bond film (currently slated to reach theaters on October 8) are “causing problems for its marketing deals, with advertisers concerned that the film may end up featuring outdated product placements.” He says “the movie could face reshoots to hide its outdated products, and … some scenes may be ‘carefully edited.’”

• So that’s what happened to Steve Hamilton. The last book published under his sole moniker, An Honorable Assassin (his third Nick Mason thriller), saw print in 2019. But next month, he will return as the co-author, with Janet Evanovich, of The Bounty, book seven in a series about FBI agent Kate O’Hare and con man Nicholas Fox, originally co-written with Lee Goldberg. The Real Book Spy tells more.

• Max Allan Collins revealed in a recent interview by Publishers Weekly that, with 2022 marking the 75th anniversary of private eye Mike Hammer’s debut, in I, the Jury, “I’ll be doing a biography of [Spillane] with James Traylor for Otto Penzler at Mysterious Press.” It was just two years ago that Collins commemorated the author’s 100th birthday with a blitz of special publications.

• After having picked up Jeff Vorzimmer’s The Best of Manhunt (2019) and last year’s The Best of Manhunt 2, you can bet I’m looking forward to the March 26 release of The Manhunt Companion, also from Stark House Press and co-edited by Peter Enfantino. In his blog Rough Edges, James Reasoner writes: “This book contains a history of the magazine, indexes of authors and stories that Manhunt published, plus reviews of every story from every issue. I’m not sure anything like this has ever been attempted before, let alone pulled off in such great style.” Click here to learn more about Manhunt (1952-1967).

• Washington Post book critic Ron Charles includes this smile-inducing tidbit in his latest newsletter:

After two weeks in office, Vice President Kamala Harris has already improved the economy of some yearbook owners. Used and rare bookseller AbeBooks reports that a set of three Howard University yearbooks—1984, 1985 and 1986—recently sold for $1,500. Those volumes include pictures of Harris, who graduated from the historically black university in D.C. in 1986. A photo of Howard’s Economics Society shows sophomore Harris with her fellow students and sponsor Joseph Houchins, who was once a member of Franklin D. Roosevelt’s Federal Council of Negro Affairs.

• George Easter, the editor of Deadly Pleasures Mystery Magazine, has posted two pieces recently that are of likely interest to Rap Sheet readers. The first collects 39 vintage paperback fronts, each of which features one or more things we don’t see around much anymore. The challenge is to identify each of those anachronisms. The answers are all available at the post’s end.

• In this second piece, Easter showcases a splendid variety of “girl with a gun”-themed covers—one of which featured in Killer Covers’ not-long-ago-concluded 12th-anniversary celebration.

• Did you know that you can watch the entire run of Columbia Pictures’ 1943 Batman serial on YouTube? The 15 installments, starring Lewis Wilson, Douglas Croft, and J. Carrol Naish, begin here with a chapter titled “The Electric Brain.”

• Gothic-style lettering makes a comeback amid our modern plague.

• Mystery & Suspense finally gets around to reviewing The Devil and the Dark Water, by British wordsmith Stuart Turton—one of my favorite mysteries of 2020—and pronounces it “clever and fun. Addictively page-turning. And so very, very entertaining.”

• I don’t relish penning obituaries, yet it seems I must do so regularly. Hal Holbrook, for instance, cannot leave this world without fit acclamation. The Ohio-born theater, film, and TV performer died on January 23 at age 95. Although many younger people know him—if only vaguely—as the guy who won a Tony Award for his stage portrayal of Mark Twain, Holbrook began his movie career in 1966, being cast in Sidney Lumet's The Group. He went on to portray then-unidentified Watergate scandal source “Deep Throat” in All the President’s Men (1976) and appeared in other movies such as Wall Street (1987), The Firm (1993), and Lincoln (2012). On the small screen, Holbrook won parts in the series Coronet Blue, The F.B.I., The Name of the Game, Designing Women (featuring his wife, Dixie Carter), Evening Shade, and The West Wing, and in teleflicks on the order That Certain Summer (1972, written by Richard Levinson and William Link) and Pueblo (1973). He starred in The Senator, a much-lauded but sadly short-lived and sometimes-controversial, 1970-1971 NBC “wheel series” drama—part of the Bold Ones rotation—playing Hays Stowe, a progressive and highly principled member of the U.S. Senate. Holbrook later led the cast of three Perry Mason TV movies (following Raymond Burr’s death in 1993), filling the boots of William “Wild Bill” McKenzie, a hotshot attorney and Utah rancher. One of my fondest memories of this actor had him playing a solely vocal part, his craggy voice narrating the 1997 Ken Burns TV documentary, Lewis & Clark: The Journey of the Corps of Discovery. The New York Times says Holbrook died at his home in Beverly Hills, California; he was buried at a cemetery in Tennessee, alongside Dixie Carter, who met her own end a decade ago, in 2010.

• Last August, I mentioned on this page that Paul Green, a self-described “biographer specializing in film and television history,” had let it be known he was entering hospice care. The author of books about Roy Huggins, Pete Duel, Jeffrey Hunter, and others, Green told me in an e-mail message, “I suffer from stage 4 prostate cancer that has spread to my bones. I have been under treatment for three years.” Now Ed Robertson, host of the radio talk show TV Confidential, brings the sad news that Green passed away on Sunday, January 17, at age 65. “He was a gifted artist, a skilled biographer, and a good friend,” Robertson wrote on Facebook. “Paul and I last spoke about two months ago, at which time he informed me of his prognosis. He was in good spirits, all things considered, and we had a nice visit. It is hard for me to pick a favorite among his books. We met because of his biography of Pete Duel, did a couple of programs about his book on The Virginian, and had memorable conversations about his biographies of Jennifer Jones, Jeffrey Hunter, and Roy Huggins. He brought all of those figures to life and gave us each an understanding of who they were as people. Rest in peace, Paul … and thank you.”

• Finally, we must say good-bye to television producer and screenwriter Cy Chermak, who apparently perished from natural causes on January 29 in Hawaii. Born in Bayonne, New Jersey, in 1929 as Seymour Albert Chermak, he went on to develop scripts for Beverly Garland’s Decoy, Cheyenne, the 1977 TV movie Murder at the World Series, and Star Trek: The Next Generation. Additionally, he produced such shows as Ironside, Amy Prentiss, Kolchak: The Night Stalker, Barbary Coast, and CHiPS. Chermak was 91.

• Speaking of obits, I tried to do justice to 81-year-old author John Lutz, who breathed his last on January 9. But his friend Francis M. Nevins does a far superior job of recounting Lutz’s illustrious career in this new Mystery*File piece. He also offers this poignant closing:

The last time I saw [Lutz] was in March 2020, shortly before COVID-19 dominated the world. He said nothing, needed a walker to get around, had lost a lot of weight, but he could still function. That soon changed. He deteriorated over the rest of last year and died a little more than a week into this one.

The only other writers with whom I had such a close and rich relationship were Fred Dannay and Ed Hoch, both of them now long dead. Is it any wonder that as the years pass I feel empty and alone more and more often?

• You may not be aware of this, but frequent Rap Sheet contributor also hosts Poets of the Tabloid Murder, a mystery-fiction author interview show heard on the Public Radio Exchange (PRX). That show was off the air for awhile, but it returned to production last August. Since then, Nester has interviewed such authors as J. Todd Scott (Lost River), T. Jefferson Parker (Then She Vanished), S..A. Cosby (Blacktop Wasteland), and most recently, Nick Petrie (The Breaker). I’ve added a link to the index of Nester’s broadcasts to the “Crime/Mystery Podcasts” list in this blog’s right-hand column.

• Promoting his new spy novel, The Mercenary—not to be confused this “orgy of death” Cold War thriller—Paul Vidich submits to an interview with Mystery Tribune, and contributes a piece to CrimeReads about the role imposters play in our literary tradition.

​• Four other CrimeReads posts to read: Vince Keenan’s look back at the never-produced Orson Welles picture The Smiler with a Knife, based on a novel by Nicholas Blake and casting Lucille Ball as its female lead; an interview with David Brawn, the publishing director for the Collins Crime Club, which recently reissued The Conjure-Man Dies, a 1932 work described as “the first detective novel by an African-American author”; Michael Kaufman’s analysis of where police procedurals stand in the age of Black Lives Matter and the January 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol by Trump-backing domestic terrorists; and editor in chief Dwyer Murphy’s eulogy for John D. MacDonald’s Point Crisp home in Sarasota, Florida, razed to make room for the sort of “enormous mansions that JDM railed against.”

• And we’ve heard much about small-business closings over these trying last 12 months. However, the British Web site inews.co.uk reports that independent bookshops in the UK have “managed not only to withstand the myriad difficulties thrown at them by the COVID-19 pandemic … but actually increased their numbers.”

(J. Robert Janes photo © 2014 by Ali Karim.)

Bullet Points: Back in the Game Edition

Sorry for the hiatus, but my computer required a major system upgrade … and I needed a few days without the responsibilities of news gathering. So I wasn’t pushing my technology folks overmuch to get the job done. But now that things seem to be back to normal, let me highlight a few crime fiction-related developments.

• I was still offline when blogger Evan Lewis posted the 18th and concluding chapter of the 1946 comic-book adaptation of Dashiell Hammett’s The Maltese Falcon. So I couldn’t draw attention to it until now. If you missed any part of that comic, you can enjoy “the whole shebang” right here. Thanks, Even, for this rare treat.

• Here’s something I didn’t know: Famous stage, screen, and radio actor John Barrymore (aka the “greatest living American tragedian”) was originally slated to play San Francisco private detective Sam Spade in the first, 1931 motion-picture adaptation of The Maltese Falcon. Blogger Steven Thompson says Warner Bros. “purchased the then recent Dashiell Hammett story as a vehicle for Barrymore.” Apparently, though, negotiations fell apart when it was announced that former child star Bebe Daniels, one of Warner’s contract players, had been signed as the female lead, and that hers “was actually a bigger part” than the screenplay gave Spade. Barrymore’s retreat from the project left room for Ricardo Cortez to step into his gumshoes, instead.

• If you haven’t watched it already, click here to find the first official trailer promoting this year’s movie adaptation of Agatha Christie’s 1934 whodunit Murder on the Orient Express. Starring a bizarrely mustachioed Kenneth Branagh as brilliant Belgian sleuth Hercule Poirot, and also featuring fine performers such as Judi Dench, Willem Dafoe, Michelle Pfeiffer, and Derek Jacobi, the film is set to debut in theaters nationwide this coming November 10.



• By the way, which poster do you prefer? The one on the left, touting the 1974 Orient Express (with art by Richard Amsel), or the one displayed on the right, from Branagh’s forthcoming version? Click on either image for an enlargement.

• In Publishers Weekly, Elizabeth Foxwell interviews Joan Hess, who completed the last Amelia Peabody historical mystery left behind when her fellow author, Elizabeth Peters (otherwise known as Barbara Mertz), died in 2013. Hess says her biggest challenge in composing The Painted Queen—which is due out from Morrow in July—“was attempting to capture the subtlety of the somewhat stilted language of the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Contractions—how I missed them!”

• From B.V. Lawson’s In Reference to Murder:

The Daphne du Maurier Award for Excellence in Mystery/Suspense is named for Daphne du Maurier, the author of Rebecca, a suspense novel with romantic and gothic overtones and a precursor to today’s romantic suspense. Presented annually by the RWA [Romance Writers of America] Kiss of Death organization, this year’s Daphne finalists were named in the category of Mainstream Mystery/Suspense and various Romantic Suspense categories. Finalists in the Mainstream Mystery/Suspense category include Notorious by Carey Baldwin; Death Among the Doilies (A Cora Crafts Mystery) by Mollie Cox Bryan; Elegy in Scarlet by B.V. Lawson; Say No More by Hank Phillippi Ryan; and In the Barren Ground by Loreth Anne White. For all the finalists (including those both unpublished and published divisions), follow this link.

• On the heels of The Rap Sheet publishing its much longer rundown of summer crime, mystery, and thriller releases, the podcast Writer Types is out with a new episode focusing in part on what works fans of this genre should sample over the next three sunnier months. (If you think you’re too busy to listen to the episode, a list of the recommendations can be found here.) Beyond that part of the show, co-host S.W. Lauden explains, “We’ve also got great interviews with Meg Gardiner (Unsub), John Rector (The Ridge), Jordan Harper (She Rides Shotgun), and Thomas Pluck (Bad Boy Boogie). All that plus a short story by Angel [Luis] Colón.” Listen here.

• What might the 2015 James Bond film Spectre have been like had Roger Moore starred in it, rather than Daniel Craig? It certainly couldn’t have been any more wearisome than the version that reached theaters, and as this what-if trailer in Spy Vibe suggests, it might have provided “a cool juxtaposition between the visceral action and danger of the Craig era and Moore’s undeniable charisma and charm on the screen.” Sadly, we can only imagine the whole of Moore’s Spectre.

• Another tribute to the late Roger Moore. (More here.)

• Lit Reactor is out with its list of “The Best Books of 2017 … So Far.” It includes a quartet of crime/thriller novels. Strangely, several of my own early favorites—Anthony Horowitz’s Magpie Murders, Philip Kerr’s Prussian Blue, Don Winslow’s The Force, and Oscar de Muriel’s Fever of the Blood—don’t show up on that roster, but there’s still time for the Lit Reactor folk to come to their senses.

• Meanwhile, The Washington Post’s choices of “37 Books We’ve Loved So Far in 2017” mentions just three crime/mystery novels: The Long Drop, by Denise Mina; Not a Sound, by Heather Gudenkauf; and Since We Fell, by Dennis Lehane (which—surprisingly for a Lehane work—I haven’t yet felt compelled to finish).

• Although the cover of its premiere issue could hardly be less intriguing than it is, I’m very pleased to see Maryland publisher Wildside Press introduce Black Cat Mystery Magazine. Scheduled to debut in September, BCMM (not to be confused with the classic, 1895-1922 American literary journal, The Black Cat) will reportedly “focus on contemporary and traditional mysteries, as well as thrillers and suspense stories.” Among the writers contributing to Issue No. 1 are Art Taylor, Meg Opperman, John Floyd, and Barb Goffman. Order a copy here. Hopes are to make BCMM a quarterly publication.

• From blogger-editor Janet Rudolph:

David Schmid, Ph.D. received the 2017 George N. Dove Award for Contributions to the Study of Mystery and Crime Fiction. David Schmid, associate professor in the Department of English at the University at Buffalo (State University of New York), was selected to receive the 2017 Dove Award. The honor is bestowed for outstanding contributions to the serious study of mystery, detective, and crime fiction by the Mystery and Detective Fiction Area of the Popular Culture Association. The award is named for George N. Dove, one of the area’s early members, a past president of the Popular Culture Association, and author of outstanding presentations, articles, and books on detective fiction, especially the police procedural.

• In Criminal Element, Hard Case Crime editor Charles Ardai offers some history behind this week’s release of Donald E. Westlake’s long-missing but quite rewarding thriller, Forever and a Death.

• Speaking of previously “lost” fiction … “A collection of short stories by Ruth Rendell, unearthed in the archive of a U.S. detective magazine, are to be published for the first time in the UK this autumn,” reports The Guardian. “The stories were found in magazines—[mostly in] back issues of … Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine—and date as far back at the 1970s. They will be published under the title A Spot of Folly.” Rendell passed away in the spring of 2015, aged 85.

• “Hopalong Cassidy—Detective?”

• I still own two manual typewriters, and am loath to give them up, thinking they might be fun to use again someday. I didn’t know I’m not alone in my nostalgia for such vintage machines. “In the age of smartphones, social media and hacking fears,” reports the Associated Press, “vintage typewriters that once gathered dust in attics and basements are attracting a new generation of fans across the U.S.”

• “On the 129th anniversary of [Raymond] Chandler’s birth, seven writers have gathered to declare how Chandler influenced their own work and continues to shape the landscape of modern crime fiction.” You’ll find their opinions here.

• After years spent as a magazine and newspaper editor, I know how popular lists are with readers. Therefore, I’m not surprised to have seen a bunch of such opinionated inventories pop up online lately. The Strand Magazine Web site seems particularly fond of such tallies, offering: “Five Prescient Political Thrillers,” “Top 10 Mystery or Crime Novels Set in the Country,” “Top 10 Crime Novels Set in London,” and “Top Nine Books with ‘Girl’ in the Title.” Since 2017 marks the centennial of America’s involvement in World War I, Criminal Element weighs in with “Nine Murder Mysteries Set During Wartime.” BookRiot shares its picks of “Five Japanese Crime Writers that Should Be on Your Radar,” and Please Kill Me’s collection of “Ten Great New York City Novels” features (naturally) Dashiell Hammett’s 1933 Nick and Nora Charles mystery, The Thin Man.

• For something a bit different, Mystery Fanfare points us toward Culture Trip’s rundown of “50 Unique Independent Bookstores You Need to Visit in Every U.S. State.” Although the wording of that headline implies we’ll learn about 50 such retailers in each state of the Union, the story actually offers just one store suggestion per state. I’ve stopped by many of these shops, but not nearly all of them.

• Did you know there is a book-length sequel to the 1992 comedy film My Cousin Vinny? Titled Back to Brooklyn, and written by New York City-area resident Lawrence Kelter, it was released last month by Down & Out Books. Oh, and it’s described on Amazon as the first sequel to that persistently entertaining movie.

• I’m always impressed by bloggers who can hang in there for the long haul, when the urge to discontinue an enterprise like this—which brings few obvious rewards and can consume so many hours of one’s life—threatens to overwhelm. Despite reports you may have heard, the business of blogging is not for the faint of heart. Therefore, let’s give a hearty round of applause to Terence Towles Canote, whose pop-culture blog, A Shroud of Thoughts, recently celebrated its 13th anniversary. That’s two more years than The Rap Sheet has been in existence.

• For most of last week, the big Batman news had to do with that fictional crime-fighter’s decision—as spelled out in the latest issue of the DC Universe Rebirth: Batman comic-book series—to finally propose marriage to Catwoman (aka Selina Kyle). Then, however, came word that Adam West, the man who’d brought both the Caped Crusader and his alter ego, “millionaire playboy” Bruce Wayne, to brave if campy life in the 1966-1968 ABC-TV series Batman, had died of leukemia at age 88. According to an obituary in The Hollywood Reporter, West once said, “You can’t play Batman in a serious, square-jawed, straight-ahead way without giving the audience the sense that there’s something behind that mask waiting to get out, that he’s a little crazed, he’s strange.” He added that he’d played Batman “for laughs, but in order to do [that], one had to never think it was funny. You just had to pull on that cowl and believe that no one would recognize you.” Trouble is, everybody came to recognize Adam West for his Batman portrayal. As a consequence, the Walla Walla, Washington-born farm boy turned actor—who’d appeared on such boob-tube dramas as 77 Sunset Strip, Hawaiian Eye, Maverick, Perry Mason, and The Detectives before scoring the Batman gig—“never quite got out of Batman’s long shadow, both for better and for worse,” writes National Public Radio’s Colin Dwyer. Yes, West later guest-starred on programs as varied as Emergency!, Laverne & Shirley, Murder, She Wrote, Diagnosis: Murder, and The Big Bang Theory; he won a regular part on the 1986 sitcom The Last Precinct and starred in Conan O’Brien’s unsuccessful 1991 TV pilot, Lookwell (which he later referenced as “my favorite” pilot); yet as The Atlantic remembers, it was only after the actor “embraced” his Batman typecasting that he could again find happiness—and consistent employment. “West returned to voice his iconic character in such cartoons as The New Adventures of Batman, Legends of the Superheroes, SuperFriends: The Legendary Super Powers Show, and The Simpsons,” observes The Hollywood Reporter, “and Warner Bros.’ long-awaited DVD release of ABC’s Batman in 2014 brought him back into the Bat Signal’s spotlight.” (He also did regular voice-overs on the animated series Family Guy.) West’s demise follows that of Yvonne Craig, the onetime dancer who played Batgirl on Batman during its final season; she passed away in 2015 as a result of breast cancer, aged 78. Still around, though, is the second half of West’s Dynamic Duo: Burt Ward, who donned tights and a ridiculously paltry black mask as Robin, “the Boy Wonder,” on the show. He’ll turn 72 come July 6 of this year. Read more about Adam West’s life and career here, here, and here.

• This is the coolest Adam West tribute imaginable! (FOLLOW-UP: Film footage from the event can be found here and here.)

• While we’re honoring the lately departed, let us not forget Boulder, Colorado, author Marlys Millhiser, who succumbed to Alzheimer’s disease on April 20, just short of her 80th birthday. As Mystery Fanfare notes, the Iowa-born former high school teacher penned “sixteen mysteries and horror novels. She served as a regional vice president of the Mystery Writers of America and is best known for her novel The Mirror (1978) and for the Charlie Greene Mysteries” (the most recent of those being 2002’s The Rampant Reaper).

• Rest in peace, Glenne Headly. As Variety reports, the Connecticut-born actress—“known for starring alongside Warren Beatty in 1990’s Dick Tracy as Tess Trueheart,” and for earning an Emmy nomination for her role in the 1989 TV miniseries Lonesome Dove—died in Santa Monica, California, on June 8 as a result of complications from a pulmonary embolism. She was only 62 years of age.

• Finally, I mentioned in my last “Bullet Points” post that veteran sportswriter-novelist Frank Deford was retiring after 37 years of doing commentary for NPR’s Morning Edition. Just two weeks later, on May 28, the 78-year-old died at his home in Key West, Florida. In honor of his journalism career, Sports Illustrated—the periodical to which he’d contributed so much of his writing over the decades—posted online one of Deford’s most memorable pieces, “The Boxer and the Blonde,” which ran originally in SI’s June 17, 1985, issue.

Bullet Points: Another Earth Day Edition

• Les Edgerton has posted a thoughtful, moving piece on the Out of the Gutter Web site about author-editor Cortright McMeel, who reportedly committed suicide last week. McMeel was the founder of Murdaland, a high-quality publication devoted to crime fiction that (sadly) lasted only two issues. He was also the author of a novel titled Short and “the force behind Denver’s Noir@Bar.” There are links to other McMeel tributes at the bottom of Edgerton’s piece.

• I don’t think I had seen this interview with writer Rex Stout before today. Conducted by Michael Bourne, the exchange was originally published back in 1973.

• Speaking of interviews worth noticing, Click here to read the results of J. Sydney Jones’ conversation with South African novelist Jassy Mackenzie, author of Pale Horses, her fourth outing for private eye Jade de Jong, which was just published by Soho Crime.

• And Philip Kerr talks with Mystery Scene’s Oline Cogdill about his acclaimed, World War II-era Bernie Gunther series, its latest entry, A Man Without Breath (Putnam), and the “strangest thing” his research into that time period has unearthed. “I find strange things all the time,” Kerr says. “It’s a period that is full of strange things. That’s what makes it interesting. I remember a time many years ago when I went to a place called Wewelsburg, where Himmler bought a castle that was to be the ‘spiritual HQ’ of the SS. It was also the smallest concentration camp in Germany. [Eight hundred] Soviet POWs were worked to death in the place. It’s now a youth hostel. I stayed there on my own one night. While I was there I discovered that the little village near the castle is still

used for SS reunions; that was an uncomfortable revelation to me--that there are plenty of people for whom Nazism still means something important.” You’ll find Cogdill’s interview here.

• Did you know that you can watch the entire run of Columbia Pictures’ 1943 Batman serial on YouTube? The 15 installments, starring Lewis Wilson, Douglas Croft, and J. Carrol Naish, begin here with a chapter titled “The Electric Brain.”

• Are you watching the three-part miniseries, The Bletchly Circle?

• The public voting process in this year’s Spinetingler Awards competition will continue through the end of April. There are six categories of nominees, including Best Novel: New Voice, Best Anthology/Short Story Collection, and Best Cover. If you haven’t yet cast a ballot, feel free to do so by clicking here.

• We’re nearing the end of Gerald So’s month-long crime poetry celebration in his blog The 5-2. If you haven’t been keeping up, never fear: the full collection of contributor links can be found here.

• Also still running is “The Scavenger,” the original tale from Christopher Mills and Rick Burchett’s crime-fiction Webcomic, Gravedigger. Today’s installment--No. 12 out of 28--can be enjoyed here. If you haven’t been following “The Scavenger,” you can catch up, beginning right here.

• Was Manhunt the “best crime-fiction magazine ever”?

• This month marks 16 years since the debut of Her Majesty’s Secret Servant, a Web site devoted to all things James Bond-ish. More here.

• Thank goodness last week’s extensive police hunt for two Boston Marathon bombers ended within a matter of days, and with one of the suspects--a naturalized U.S. citizen--being captured alive (and soon to be tried in federal court). As the search was underway, though, Read Me Deadly produced a post looking at “a small selection of Boston-related mysteries” that’s still worth checking out.

• A bit of cool history: “Tiny pieces of California Gold Rush history fetched big bucks at a Reno auction of Western Americana. The Jack Totheroh Collection of some 200 gold coins privately made in San Francisco in the 1850s sold for $865,000, while the Bergen-Istvan Collection of about 50 similar gold coins went for $252,000 ... According to historians, the rare coins in 25 cent, 50 cent, and dollar denominations were struck by jewelers from 1852 to 1857 when there was a shortage of small change in California. Historians say while banks apparently didn’t accept them, they were used at some San Francisco businesses. They also became popular as souvenirs as early as 1853.” I’d love to have one of those babies.

• TV Guide has been celebrating its 60th anniversary all month long. I used to be a TV Guide junkie, and I still own a stack of Fall Preview editions from the 1970s and ’80s. However, I haven’t bought an issue for years, the last time being shortly after the format switched from digest to full-size magazine in 2005 and TV Guide pretty much disappeared from grocery store checkout stands. Consequently, I missed seeing its recent list of “TV’s 60 Nastiest Villains,” which included The One-Armed Man from The Fugitive, Al Sweargengen from Deadwood, Nina Myers from 24, Al Capone from The Untouchables>, The Joker from Batman, and Number Two from The Prisoner.

• The term “pulp” may be inappropriately used here, but I’m still looking forward to getting my mitts on a copy of Black Pulp (CreateSpace), the new “anthology of original stories featuring black characters in leading roles in stories running the genre gamut.” Contributors to this paperback include Walter Mosley, Joe R. Lansdale, Gary Phillips, Mel Odom, Ron Fortier, and Gar Anthony Haywood.

• The latest edition of the podcast I Hear of Sherlock Everywhere tackles that ever-pressing question, “Who is a Sherlockian?”

• I’ve never had much respect for USA Today. I find it to be a shallow newspaper, directed mostly at people with short attention spans. However, I was interested last week in news that the paper’s founder, Al Neuharth, had died at age 89. What struck me most was a statement he made during a 1996 interview with the Poynter Institute for Media Studies: “There’s nothing [more] I’d want to do with my life than to be in the news business. I think that gives us a window on the world that you cannot have in any other business or profession.” As a veteran reporter myself, I know how that feels.

• Recently, I’ve been reading Jim Steinmeyer’s Who Was Dracula?: Bram Stoker’s Trail of Blood, which tries, in part, to identify the inspirations for Stoker’s bloodthirsty Transylvanian count. The author sums up his findings in this Huffington Post slideshow, and although I despise slideshows on the Web (why can’t we just get all of the information on a single page?), I suggest you look this one over. Again, though, I hate slideshows. Let me make that point crystal clear.

• This being the 43rd annual celebration of Earth Day, you should look over Janet Rudolph’s list of environment-related mysteries, as well as her updated rundown of “reservoir noir” (“books that deal with intentional flooding of towns and villages because of building dams and reservoirs for water supply, irrigation, power, and other reasons ...”).

• Finally, my old college friend, Pulitzer Prize-winning cartoonist Matt Wuerker, has a new page up in Politico devoted to his “most environmentally inspired cartoons.”