• Just two months after news broke that the Victorian TV crime series Miss Scarlet and the Duke would be losing actor Stuart Martin, who personated London police detective William “Duke” Wellington during that show’s initial four seasons, we learn from In Reference to Murder that “Tom Durant Pritchard (The Crown) has joined the cast of the Masterpiece drama”—to be retitled Miss Scarlet—“playing Alexander Blake, a handsome former soldier and respected detective inspector who joins the force at Scotland Yard after Wellington’s departure. He’s not particularly shocked by a woman working as a private eye, so Eliza [Scarlet, played by Kate Phillips] takes this to mean she’ll be given more cases. But their relationship gets off to a rocky start since Blake has decided not to allow private detectives to aid in his investigations. As Blake and Miss Scarlet cross paths at various crime scenes across London, they can’t help but develop mutual respect for one another, and perhaps even an attraction.” The Killing Times reports that the production of fresh Miss Scarlet episodes “is currently underway in Belgrade, Serbia, and [the show] is set to return to Alibi [and Masterpiece] in 2025.”
• Meanwhile, a trailer has been released for Season 9 of Grantchester. The first of a half-dozen new episodes will be broadcast in the states under PBS-TV’s Masterpiece umbrella come Sunday, June 16. Times are changing in more ways than one as this tale continues. The year is now 1961, Reverend Will Davenport (Tom Brittany) is departing his post in the Cambridgeshire village of Grantchester—much to the consternation of his friend and colleague, Detective Inspector Geordie Keating (Robson Green)—and a new vicar is stepping in to replace him: Reverend Alphy Kotteram, portrayed by Rishi Nair (Hollyoaks). Nair will be the third Anglican vicar protagonist in this series from UK network ITV, following James Norton as the Reverend Sidney Chambers (Seasons 1-4) and Brittany (4-9).
• This comes as a bit of a surprise: CBS-TV has cancelled the crime drama CSI: Vegas. A revival of the original, 2000–2015 series CSI: Crime Scene Investigation, CSI: Vegas debuted in 2021, and in its first year found William Petersen and Jorja Fox reprising their roles from the popular previous series. Marg Helgenberger, who’d played forensics officer Catherine Willows in the first CSI, signed on to the cast of CSI: Vegas during its second season, joining Paula Newsome, Mandeep Dhillon, Matt Lauria, Ariana Guerra, Jay Lee and Lex Medlin.
• And timed nicely to what would have been this month’s 100th birthday for American composer-conductor Henry Mancini (had he not died back in 1994), Philadelphia journalist Shaun Brady pens a glowing tribute to one of Mancini’s best-remembered works, the “iconic” theme to the TV series Peter Gunn (1958-1961). “Peter Gunn instantly made Mancini a household name,” Brady recalls. “The soundtrack was awarded Album of the Year at the inaugural Grammy Awards, and the theme proved to be the first of many indelible Mancini melodies to come.” If you’d like to hear more versions of Mancini’s eminently whistle-able piece, see The Bunburyist’s collection here.
Showing posts with label CSI. Show all posts
Showing posts with label CSI. Show all posts
Monday, April 22, 2024
Thursday, February 10, 2022
Bullet Points: Full Meal Deal Edition
It’s been too long since I found the time to write one of these news wrap-ups, so I have much to share. Let’s dive right in.
• I was overjoyed last September to learn that Crippen & Landru would be releasing a posthumous collection of short stories by screenwriting partners William Link and Richard Levinson, best known for having created the NBC Mystery Movie series Columbo. C&L publisher Jeffrey Marks said the book was to be titled Shooting Script and Other Mysteries, and that he would send me a copy. Four months passed, no book found its way into my mailbox, and I became busy with other things.
It wasn’t until mid-January that I thought to check on Shooting Script’s status … only to learn that it had gone on sale in November, and I just wasn’t aware. Naturally, I ordered a copy immediately, and have been working my way slowly through its 194 pages ever since. The book comprises 17 abbreviated yarns, written between 1954 and 1966. Most appeared originally in Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine. One, “Whistle While You Work,” was composed by the pair while they were still high school students in Philadelphia, and sold to Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine, but the remainder, explains Jim Noy in The Invisible Event, were turned out when Link and Levinson were in their 30s. “[S]traight away the tonal shift is evident,” he says, “concerned less with immediate narrative cleverness than with capturing the intrusion of crime as a terrifying-but-regenerative thing. ‘Shooting Script’ (1959), ‘Operation Staying-Alive’ (1959), and ‘Robbery, Robbery, Robbery’ (1959)—this last also published under the title ‘Robbery, Robbery!’, which manages to miss the point quite impressively—see ordinary people pulled into the maelstrom and emerging in different ways: bewildered, energised, sometimes terrified.” In Noy’s opinion, the best of the bunch here is “Dear Corpus Delicti” (1960), “in which we follow a man’s perfect scheme to murder his wife and start a new life with his mistress.” It’s obvious from the outset that “Dear Corpus Delicti” was part of the source material these authors harvested when they sat down to write the play and, later, the TV film Prescription: Murder, the figurative first pilot for Columbo.
Earlier this week, I asked Joseph Goodrich, who edited Shooting Script, what he learned about Link and Levinson by bringing their forgotten short stories back to print. He got back to me pronto:
• Speaking of Messieurs Link and Levinson, what’s been swirling around in the zeitgeist that might explain why so much has been written recently about their 1975-1976 NBC-TV series, Ellery Queen? Early last month, Ah Sweet Mystery! blogger Brad Friedman undertook the formidable task of reviewing—in pairs—all 22 weekly episodes. You should be able to access those pieces here. (Friedman remarked on the March 23, 1975, pilot, “Too Many Suspects,” in his introduction to that project.) After concluding his efforts, he presented this poll page, inviting veteran Ellery Queen enthusiasts as well as newcomers to that hour-long whodunit to identify their favorite episodes. Friedman will keep his survey up until February 16, then reveal its results.
• Meanwhile, Curtis Evans—spurred on by Friedman’s deep dive—presented his own memories and opinions of Ellery Queen in The Passing Tramp. In his case, he covered that short-lived Jim Hutton/David Wayne series in five installments (see here, here, here, here, and here), before presenting his top-10 list of favorite episodes. This all makes me want to go back and watch the full run of the show myself. Maybe after I finish Reacher.
• Author Robert Crais announced this week that his next novel, Racing the Light—starring P.I. Elvis Cole, Joe Pike, and mercenary John Stone—will be released by Putnam on November 1.
• News that Monica Vitti, often referred to as “the Queen of Italian Cinema,” died on February 2 at age 90, left me wondering how best to honor her memory in The Rap Sheet. Then, while reading Terence Towles Canote’s obituary of Vitti, I was reminded that she’d starred as the eponymous criminal-turned-crime fighter in Modesty Blaise, a lightweight but diverting 1966 British spy-fi picture. She also became artist Robert McGinnis’ model for that character, when he sat down to paint the cover for Fawcett’s paperback tie-in novel, Modesty Blaise, by Peter O’Donnell. The book front and actress are shown below.
• This Monday is Valentine’s Day. Do you know what books you’ll crack for that occasion? Janet Rudolph offers some suggestions.
• CrimeReads senior editor Molly Odintz supplies an alternative reading list: “Your Anti-Valentine’s Day Round-Up of the Sexiest Mysteries to Read with Your FWBs.” Yes, I had to look up that initialism, too: it stands for “friends with benefits.”
• Wait just a darn minute here, I thought Christopher Fowler was done penning his time-spanning yarns about detectives Arthur Bryant and John May of London’s fictional Peculiar Crimes Unit. When the 20th such mystery, Bryant & May: London Bridge Is Falling Down, came out last summer, The Guardian made quite clear that it was “bringing to a close a much-loved series that started in 2003 with Full Dark House.” So much for that. Fowler writes this week in his blog that he’s now “in the final stages of the edit” of a 21st Peculiar Crimes book, which sounds more like a tour guide than a novel. Says Fowler:
• Funny, this 1977 NBC-TV movie was supposed to be set in my hometown of Seattle, Washington, but I’ve never heard of it before. The Modcinema sales site describes Ransom for Alice as “the pilot film for the unsold series
The Busters. The protagonists are not narcotics agents as might be assumed, but instead a male-female team of government undercover agents (Gil Gerard, Yvette Mimieux) operating in Seattle in the 1890s. … Ransom for Alice is an uncertain blend of cop drama, western, and espionage caper.” Do any Rap Sheet readers remember watching this 75-minute feature?
• A couple of podcasts have been added to The Rap Sheet’s right-hand column of crime-fiction resources: Hark! The 87th Precinct Podcast, which deals with the varied works of Ed McBain, and The le Carré Cast, concentrating on espionage novelist John le Carré.
• While we’re on the topic of le Carré, let us note the coming publication of a new collection of his writings. The following comes from Jeff Quest’s blog, Spy Write: “After being teased by Nick Harkaway, one of le Carré’s sons, during book events surrounding the release of Silverview, we now have additional details on a book of John le Carré/David Cornwell correspondence. The book, currently titled A Private Spy: The Letters of John le Carré, 1945-2020, has a UK release date of November 3rd, 2022 and a healthy page count of 400, although [publisher Viking’s] U.S. page lists a release date of October 11th, 2022 and 144 pages. So there is some conflicting information that will hopefully be cleared up soon.”
• Beware, spoilers ahead! Although the British-French crime drama Death in Paradise debuted way back in 2011, my wife and I only became fans during the months of COVID-19 isolation. That program’s cast has changed a good deal over the last decade, offering viewers four different male leads (my favorite being Kris Marshall as Detective Inspector Humphrey Goodman), backed up by a trio of female detective sergeants—the best of whom, to my mind, is six-season veteran Florence Cassell, played by lovely French actress Joséphine Jobert. Season 11 was introduced with a 90-minute Christmas special this last December, and has been airing new episodes in Great Britain since early January. So far, there seems to be no U.S. premiere scheduled for this latest series; however, word of its plot progress has been leaking across the pond—including sad news that Jobert is no longer part of the show after Episode 4. Indeed, the UK’s Hello! magazine confirms that in the fifth episode, she’s replaced by Shantol Jackson playing newly promoted DS Naomi Thomas.
• Why is strychnine the mystery writers’ poison of choice?
• Saima Mir, author of the 2021 debut novel Khan, has been named as “the first recipient of the CrimeFest bursary for a crime fiction author of colour.” According to a news release, that scholarship “will cover the cost of a full weekend pass to CrimeFest this May, a night’s accommodation at the Mercure Bristol Grand Hotel, and a guaranteed panel appearance. … Three runners-up were also chosen to receive complementary passes to this year’s convention: Elizabeth Chakrabarty, Amita Murray, and Stella Oni.”
• Sioux Falls, South Dakota, fictionist William Reynolds has been enjoying some favorable press notices of recent date, thanks to the fact of Brash Books reissuing his half-dozen crime novels about Nebraska, a single-monikered writer and private eye operating in Omaha, Nebraska. “From the beginning,” he tells the Sioux Falls blog Pigeon 605, “I wanted him to be sort of this average guy. He’s not 6-foot-6 and 250 pounds of square-jawed raw muscle; he’s average. In fact, there’s instances in which he deliberately uses his averageness to kind of blend in. He’s self-aware, and sometimes he screws up. He blunders into things he shouldn’t blunder into.” Reynolds’ series commences with The Nebraska Quotient (1984) and runs through Drive-By (1995)—at least, so far. Might all of this fresh attention to
his work spur the author to compose a new Nebraska tale? Pigeon 605’s Jill Callison says, Reynolds “doesn’t have a new plot in mind. But he did spend time over the summer thinking about it.”
• Also receiving attention is the fourth issue of Men’s Adventure Quarterly, edited by Robert Deis and Bill Cunningham, and released last month. “I’m running out of superlatives to describe what a beautiful publication Men’s Adventure Quarterly is,” enthuses prolific novelist James Reasoner. “Every issue lovingly reprints great covers and interior art from the men’s adventure magazines of the Fifties, Sixties, and Seventies, along with stories and features from those magazines, all of it enhanced by well-written and informative editorials and introductions.” Glorious Trash’s Joe Kenney adds that this edition “is different from the previous three, not only due to its focus on female characters, but also because it features a few stories that were actually written by a female author. As Bob Deis notes in his intro, Jane Dolinger was definitely unique in the world of men’s magazines: a female writer who turned out escapist adventure yarns and who also happened to be a stacked beauty who posed nude for the very magazines she wrote for!” I admit, I haven’t yet purchased any of these magazines. Clearly I have been missing out.
• Count me as lax, too, for not having already mentioned Michael Stradford’s beautiful coffee-table book, Steve Holland: The World’s Greatest Illustration Art Model (St. Clair). Stradford has turned his boyhood fascination with the old Doc Savage paperback series—fronted so often by illustrations including actor-model Steve Holland—into a tribute volume that Paperback Warrior calls “absolutely a mandatory reference for anyone fascinated by 20th-century paperbacks, magazines and male-oriented advertisements. … More than 20 years after his death, Holland’s face is still selling publications. That is a testament to his phenomenal physique, likable face and ability to provide the perfect likeness for all of these amazing visuals. Stradford has honored Holland in such a beautiful way and I can’t thank him enough for his labors in creating it.”
• Should you be unacquainted with Steve Holland’s once-ubiquitous presence on paperbacks and magazines, see examples here.
• PulpFest, the annual celebration of pulp magazines and genre fiction—scheduled to take place this year in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, from August 4 to 7—is soliciting nominations for two familiar prizes. First is the Munsey Award, named for America’s first pulp mag publisher, Frank A. Munsey, and recognizing “an individual or organization that has bettered the pulp community, be it through disseminating knowledge about the pulps or through publishing or other efforts to preserve and foster interest in the pulp magazines we all love and enjoy.” (Last year’s Munsey recipient was publisher and book designer Rich Harvey.) The second commendation seeking nominees is the Rusty Hevelin Service Award, “designed to recognize those persons who have worked long and hard for the pulp community with little thought for individual recognition.” More info about these honors and how to submit names for consideration is available here.
• I was overjoyed last September to learn that Crippen & Landru would be releasing a posthumous collection of short stories by screenwriting partners William Link and Richard Levinson, best known for having created the NBC Mystery Movie series Columbo. C&L publisher Jeffrey Marks said the book was to be titled Shooting Script and Other Mysteries, and that he would send me a copy. Four months passed, no book found its way into my mailbox, and I became busy with other things.
It wasn’t until mid-January that I thought to check on Shooting Script’s status … only to learn that it had gone on sale in November, and I just wasn’t aware. Naturally, I ordered a copy immediately, and have been working my way slowly through its 194 pages ever since. The book comprises 17 abbreviated yarns, written between 1954 and 1966. Most appeared originally in Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine. One, “Whistle While You Work,” was composed by the pair while they were still high school students in Philadelphia, and sold to Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine, but the remainder, explains Jim Noy in The Invisible Event, were turned out when Link and Levinson were in their 30s. “[S]traight away the tonal shift is evident,” he says, “concerned less with immediate narrative cleverness than with capturing the intrusion of crime as a terrifying-but-regenerative thing. ‘Shooting Script’ (1959), ‘Operation Staying-Alive’ (1959), and ‘Robbery, Robbery, Robbery’ (1959)—this last also published under the title ‘Robbery, Robbery!’, which manages to miss the point quite impressively—see ordinary people pulled into the maelstrom and emerging in different ways: bewildered, energised, sometimes terrified.” In Noy’s opinion, the best of the bunch here is “Dear Corpus Delicti” (1960), “in which we follow a man’s perfect scheme to murder his wife and start a new life with his mistress.” It’s obvious from the outset that “Dear Corpus Delicti” was part of the source material these authors harvested when they sat down to write the play and, later, the TV film Prescription: Murder, the figurative first pilot for Columbo.Earlier this week, I asked Joseph Goodrich, who edited Shooting Script, what he learned about Link and Levinson by bringing their forgotten short stories back to print. He got back to me pronto:
First of all, as a fan of Link and Levinson’s work, it was a pleasure to read the stories and watch them apply what they learned from reading mystery fiction to the writing of it. These aren’t detective stories, even though Columbo’s origins are contained in the collection; to me they have more in common with, say, Stanley Ellin’s stories, in which a shift of focus or perspective throws a new and unexpected (and often-shocking) light on what we assumed was happening.Shooting Script and Other Mysteries offers insight into the evolution of Link and Levinson as storytelling masters. Highly recommended.
Apart from 1954’s “Whistle While You Work,” the majority of the stories were written in the late ’50s and early ’60s, and reflect a world that was in the process of vanishing, the world of down-at-heels boarding houses and small-town postmen, and patients who smoke in doctors’ offices. I think there’s also just a hint of the turbulent world that would soon take over in stories like “Top-Flight Aquarium” and "The Man in the Lobby." Gruesome death and a deadly resignation …
• Speaking of Messieurs Link and Levinson, what’s been swirling around in the zeitgeist that might explain why so much has been written recently about their 1975-1976 NBC-TV series, Ellery Queen? Early last month, Ah Sweet Mystery! blogger Brad Friedman undertook the formidable task of reviewing—in pairs—all 22 weekly episodes. You should be able to access those pieces here. (Friedman remarked on the March 23, 1975, pilot, “Too Many Suspects,” in his introduction to that project.) After concluding his efforts, he presented this poll page, inviting veteran Ellery Queen enthusiasts as well as newcomers to that hour-long whodunit to identify their favorite episodes. Friedman will keep his survey up until February 16, then reveal its results.
• Meanwhile, Curtis Evans—spurred on by Friedman’s deep dive—presented his own memories and opinions of Ellery Queen in The Passing Tramp. In his case, he covered that short-lived Jim Hutton/David Wayne series in five installments (see here, here, here, here, and here), before presenting his top-10 list of favorite episodes. This all makes me want to go back and watch the full run of the show myself. Maybe after I finish Reacher.
• Author Robert Crais announced this week that his next novel, Racing the Light—starring P.I. Elvis Cole, Joe Pike, and mercenary John Stone—will be released by Putnam on November 1.
• News that Monica Vitti, often referred to as “the Queen of Italian Cinema,” died on February 2 at age 90, left me wondering how best to honor her memory in The Rap Sheet. Then, while reading Terence Towles Canote’s obituary of Vitti, I was reminded that she’d starred as the eponymous criminal-turned-crime fighter in Modesty Blaise, a lightweight but diverting 1966 British spy-fi picture. She also became artist Robert McGinnis’ model for that character, when he sat down to paint the cover for Fawcett’s paperback tie-in novel, Modesty Blaise, by Peter O’Donnell. The book front and actress are shown below.
• By the way, at least for now can watch the full two-hour length of Modesty Blaise by clicking over to YouTube.
• The lineup of prominent international authors invited as guests to this year’s Iceland Noir festival, taking place in Reykjavik from November 16 to 19, has been broadcast. It includes Ruth Ware, Richard Osman, Paula Hawkins, Mark Billingham, and Sophie Hannah. Tickets to the popular literary event can be purchased here.
• Coming up sooner than that is Mystery Fest, being planned for Saturday, March 12, in Portsmouth, England. The Guest of Honor at this year’s gathering will be Priscilla Masters, the creator of Detective Inspector Joanna Piercy (Almost a Whisper) and coroner Martha Gunn (Bridge of Sighs). Also appearing for panel discussions that day will be authors Edward Marston, Leigh Russell, and Judith Cutler. Events will take place on the third floor of the Portsmouth Central Library, beginning at 10 a.m. and concluding at 5 p.m.
• Oh, and let us not forget Lyme Crime, which—according to its Web site—“launched online in June 2020 and returns with a full, three-day festival 23 to 25 June 2022.” Tickets go on sale in March, and the program is expected to be publicized soon. For now, Shotsmag Confidential at least provides us with a look at the authors attending this convocation in the Dorset coastal town of Lyme Regis.
• Deadly Pleasures Mystery Magazine is out with its new, digital-only Winter 2022 issue, devoted in substantial part to what its editors (and others) say were the best mysteries, crime novels, and thrillers published over the course of 2021. Editor George Easter has filled these pages with numerous “best of the year” lists he posted in his blog at the end of 2021, then broken the top picks down according to the number of times they were mentioned. (S.A. Cosby’s Razorblade Tears scored best, with an astonishing 44 recommendations!) Elsewhere in the issue, assistant editor Larry Gandle assesses this year’s Edgar Award-nominated books; recent deaths within the crime-fiction community are acknowledged (goodbye again, G.M. Ford); contributor George H. Madison looks back at the rough road to making the Raymond Chandler-scripted 1946 film, The Blue Dahlia; Ted Hertel and Brian Ritt both revisit the work of George Harmon Coxe (1901-1984); and there are myriad critiques of recent releases, including from debut columnist Meredith Anthony. That’s a hell of a lot of copy to cram into one magazine. Good thing that Deadly Pleasures no longer needs to worry about paper and printing costs.
• A rare “best of 2021” compilation that didn’t make it into Deadly Pleasures comes from The Strand Magazine. Its absence may be chalked up simply to the fact that it came out so tardily: managing editor Andrew Gulli posted his top 20 favorites in late January. They include Sleep Well, My Lady, by Kwei Quartey (Soho Crime); The Whispering Dead, by Darcy Coates (Black Owl ); The Wayward Spy, by Susan Ouellette (CamCat); Her Perfect Life, by Hank Phillippi Ryan (Forge); and The Maidens, by Alex Michaelides (Celadon).
• A different sort of “bests” roster was presented more recently by Robert Lopresti in the Sleuth Sayers blog. As he explains, it’s his “thirteenth annual list of the year’s best mystery [short] stories as determined by yours truly. It goes without saying that the verdicts are subjective, personal, and entirely correct.” Almost a third of Lopresti’s 16 picks originated in Alfred Hitchcock Mystery Magazine, with almost as many drawn from Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine.
• How his hoax execution affected Fyodor Dostoevsky’s fiction.
• It’s been a long time in coming, but the six-part Apple+ TV series Slow Horses is finally set to premiere on Friday, April 1. And that’s no joke, folks. Mystery Fanfare reports that this spy drama, adapted from Mick Herron’s first Slough House novel of the same name, will start with back-to-back presentations of its opening two installments, “followed by one new episode weekly every Friday.” Slow Horses focuses on a team of British intelligence agents who are considered, well, troublesome and expendable. Gary Oldman plays the arrogant and oft-offensive head of that misfit squad, Jackson Lamb. Also among the cast are Kristin Scott Thomas, Jonathan Pryce, 
(Left) Joe Cole plays Harry Palmer in The Ipcress File.
• In other small-screen news, Crime Fiction Lover alerts us that UK network ITV will roll out, sometime in March, its six-part series The Ipcress File, based on both Len Deighton’s 1962 espionage novel, The IPCRESS File, and the 1965 Michael Caine film adapted from that book. Judging by a one-minute trailer, says CFL, “It looks like no expense has been spared … and the initial impression is sexy, witty and dangerous.” Deighton Dossier blogger Rob Mallows adds: “While little of the plot is given away, it’s clear that the series will make some significant departures from both the book and the [film] …, such as the more active agent role for Jean, played by Lucy Boynton, evidence of the backstory of the ‘unnamed spy’—Harry Palmer—and his role in the Berlin black market which led to military prison and ultimately, the job with W.O.O.C.(P)., plus the sidebar story involving the nuclear test in the Pacific, which is a big part of the book but which was of course not featured in the original film.” In addition to Boynton, The Ipcress Files’ cast features Joe Cole and Tom Hollander. UPDATE: This mini-series is supposed to be carried in the States on AMC+, but no airdate has yet been publicized.
• I can’t say I’m terribly surprised to hear this. From Deadline:
Marg Helgenberger is eyeing a possible return to the CSI franchise with a reprisal of her role as Catherine Willows ... Helgenberg would appear in the upcoming second season of CSI: Vegas, the sequel to the groundbreaking 2000 series, in which Helgenberger starred for the first 12 seasons. …Actors Petersen and Fox had earlier announced they will not be returning for the sophomore season of CSI: Vegas.
Season 1 opened a new chapter in Las Vegas—the city where it all began, introducing a serialized storytelling to the classic crime procedural drama. Facing an existential threat that could bring down the entire Crime Lab and release thousands of convicted killers back onto the neon-lit streets of Vegas, a brilliant new team of investigators led by Maxine Roby (Paula Newsome) enlisted the help of old friends, Gil Grissom (William Petersen) and Sara Sidle (Jorja Fox), to investigate a case centered around former colleague David Hodges (Wallace Langham). This combined force deployed the latest forensic techniques to follow the evidence—to preserve and serve justice in Sin City.
• This Monday is Valentine’s Day. Do you know what books you’ll crack for that occasion? Janet Rudolph offers some suggestions.
• CrimeReads senior editor Molly Odintz supplies an alternative reading list: “Your Anti-Valentine’s Day Round-Up of the Sexiest Mysteries to Read with Your FWBs.” Yes, I had to look up that initialism, too: it stands for “friends with benefits.”
• Wait just a darn minute here, I thought Christopher Fowler was done penning his time-spanning yarns about detectives Arthur Bryant and John May of London’s fictional Peculiar Crimes Unit. When the 20th such mystery, Bryant & May: London Bridge Is Falling Down, came out last summer, The Guardian made quite clear that it was “bringing to a close a much-loved series that started in 2003 with Full Dark House.” So much for that. Fowler writes this week in his blog that he’s now “in the final stages of the edit” of a 21st Peculiar Crimes book, which sounds more like a tour guide than a novel. Says Fowler:
For 20 books, London has been a central character in the Bryant & May series, so I decided that the detectives’ next investigation should be of London itself. And that this investigation has been going on—in a sort of louche way—for the last twenty years.Amazon UK says Fowler’s new book will be released on July 14.
After all, the nation’s oldest serving detectives have spent a lifetime investigating crimes in the murkiest corners of London. They’ve been walking the streets and impulsively arresting citizens for decades. Who better to take you through London’s less savoury side?
They’re going to be remembering old buildings and odd characters, lost venues, forgotten disasters, confusing travel routes, dubious gossip, illicit pleasures and hidden pubs. The idea is to make strange connections and show readers why it’s almost impossible to tell separate and fiction in the city.
The book will be very much a part of the existing canon; Volume 21, Bryant & May’s Peculiar London. It will have a cover by our usual superb artist Max Schindler and will be the same size and format as all earlier volumes.
• Funny, this 1977 NBC-TV movie was supposed to be set in my hometown of Seattle, Washington, but I’ve never heard of it before. The Modcinema sales site describes Ransom for Alice as “the pilot film for the unsold series
The Busters. The protagonists are not narcotics agents as might be assumed, but instead a male-female team of government undercover agents (Gil Gerard, Yvette Mimieux) operating in Seattle in the 1890s. … Ransom for Alice is an uncertain blend of cop drama, western, and espionage caper.” Do any Rap Sheet readers remember watching this 75-minute feature?• A couple of podcasts have been added to The Rap Sheet’s right-hand column of crime-fiction resources: Hark! The 87th Precinct Podcast, which deals with the varied works of Ed McBain, and The le Carré Cast, concentrating on espionage novelist John le Carré.
• While we’re on the topic of le Carré, let us note the coming publication of a new collection of his writings. The following comes from Jeff Quest’s blog, Spy Write: “After being teased by Nick Harkaway, one of le Carré’s sons, during book events surrounding the release of Silverview, we now have additional details on a book of John le Carré/David Cornwell correspondence. The book, currently titled A Private Spy: The Letters of John le Carré, 1945-2020, has a UK release date of November 3rd, 2022 and a healthy page count of 400, although [publisher Viking’s] U.S. page lists a release date of October 11th, 2022 and 144 pages. So there is some conflicting information that will hopefully be cleared up soon.”
• Beware, spoilers ahead! Although the British-French crime drama Death in Paradise debuted way back in 2011, my wife and I only became fans during the months of COVID-19 isolation. That program’s cast has changed a good deal over the last decade, offering viewers four different male leads (my favorite being Kris Marshall as Detective Inspector Humphrey Goodman), backed up by a trio of female detective sergeants—the best of whom, to my mind, is six-season veteran Florence Cassell, played by lovely French actress Joséphine Jobert. Season 11 was introduced with a 90-minute Christmas special this last December, and has been airing new episodes in Great Britain since early January. So far, there seems to be no U.S. premiere scheduled for this latest series; however, word of its plot progress has been leaking across the pond—including sad news that Jobert is no longer part of the show after Episode 4. Indeed, the UK’s Hello! magazine confirms that in the fifth episode, she’s replaced by Shantol Jackson playing newly promoted DS Naomi Thomas.
• Why is strychnine the mystery writers’ poison of choice?
• Saima Mir, author of the 2021 debut novel Khan, has been named as “the first recipient of the CrimeFest bursary for a crime fiction author of colour.” According to a news release, that scholarship “will cover the cost of a full weekend pass to CrimeFest this May, a night’s accommodation at the Mercure Bristol Grand Hotel, and a guaranteed panel appearance. … Three runners-up were also chosen to receive complementary passes to this year’s convention: Elizabeth Chakrabarty, Amita Murray, and Stella Oni.”
• Sioux Falls, South Dakota, fictionist William Reynolds has been enjoying some favorable press notices of recent date, thanks to the fact of Brash Books reissuing his half-dozen crime novels about Nebraska, a single-monikered writer and private eye operating in Omaha, Nebraska. “From the beginning,” he tells the Sioux Falls blog Pigeon 605, “I wanted him to be sort of this average guy. He’s not 6-foot-6 and 250 pounds of square-jawed raw muscle; he’s average. In fact, there’s instances in which he deliberately uses his averageness to kind of blend in. He’s self-aware, and sometimes he screws up. He blunders into things he shouldn’t blunder into.” Reynolds’ series commences with The Nebraska Quotient (1984) and runs through Drive-By (1995)—at least, so far. Might all of this fresh attention to
his work spur the author to compose a new Nebraska tale? Pigeon 605’s Jill Callison says, Reynolds “doesn’t have a new plot in mind. But he did spend time over the summer thinking about it.”• Also receiving attention is the fourth issue of Men’s Adventure Quarterly, edited by Robert Deis and Bill Cunningham, and released last month. “I’m running out of superlatives to describe what a beautiful publication Men’s Adventure Quarterly is,” enthuses prolific novelist James Reasoner. “Every issue lovingly reprints great covers and interior art from the men’s adventure magazines of the Fifties, Sixties, and Seventies, along with stories and features from those magazines, all of it enhanced by well-written and informative editorials and introductions.” Glorious Trash’s Joe Kenney adds that this edition “is different from the previous three, not only due to its focus on female characters, but also because it features a few stories that were actually written by a female author. As Bob Deis notes in his intro, Jane Dolinger was definitely unique in the world of men’s magazines: a female writer who turned out escapist adventure yarns and who also happened to be a stacked beauty who posed nude for the very magazines she wrote for!” I admit, I haven’t yet purchased any of these magazines. Clearly I have been missing out.
• Count me as lax, too, for not having already mentioned Michael Stradford’s beautiful coffee-table book, Steve Holland: The World’s Greatest Illustration Art Model (St. Clair). Stradford has turned his boyhood fascination with the old Doc Savage paperback series—fronted so often by illustrations including actor-model Steve Holland—into a tribute volume that Paperback Warrior calls “absolutely a mandatory reference for anyone fascinated by 20th-century paperbacks, magazines and male-oriented advertisements. … More than 20 years after his death, Holland’s face is still selling publications. That is a testament to his phenomenal physique, likable face and ability to provide the perfect likeness for all of these amazing visuals. Stradford has honored Holland in such a beautiful way and I can’t thank him enough for his labors in creating it.”
• Should you be unacquainted with Steve Holland’s once-ubiquitous presence on paperbacks and magazines, see examples here.
• PulpFest, the annual celebration of pulp magazines and genre fiction—scheduled to take place this year in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, from August 4 to 7—is soliciting nominations for two familiar prizes. First is the Munsey Award, named for America’s first pulp mag publisher, Frank A. Munsey, and recognizing “an individual or organization that has bettered the pulp community, be it through disseminating knowledge about the pulps or through publishing or other efforts to preserve and foster interest in the pulp magazines we all love and enjoy.” (Last year’s Munsey recipient was publisher and book designer Rich Harvey.) The second commendation seeking nominees is the Rusty Hevelin Service Award, “designed to recognize those persons who have worked long and hard for the pulp community with little thought for individual recognition.” More info about these honors and how to submit names for consideration is available here.
Monday, July 26, 2021
“The Truth Doesn’t Lie”
After being delayed by COVID-19 concerns, the reportedly “limited series” CSI: Vegas, a follow-up to the 2000-2015 CBS-TV series CSI: Crime Scene Investigation, is now scheduled to premiere on Wednesday, October 6. Blogger B.V. Lawson explains:
An earlier report from Deadline’s Nellie Andreeva said that, although CSI: Vegas is billed as an event mini-series, it “could become an ongoing series running for multiple seasons.”
The sequel features returning CSI stars William Petersen, Jorja Fox, and Wallace Langham, who are joined by new series regulars Paula Newsome, Matt Lauria, Mel Rodriguez and Mandeep Dhillon. CSI: Vegas opens a new chapter in the city where it all began. Facing an existential threat that could bring down the Crime Lab, a brilliant team of forensic investigators must welcome back old friends and deploy new techniques to preserve and serve justice in Sin City.Deadline shares a new 20-second teaser video here.
An earlier report from Deadline’s Nellie Andreeva said that, although CSI: Vegas is billed as an event mini-series, it “could become an ongoing series running for multiple seasons.”
Monday, February 15, 2021
“CSI” Returns to Its Roots
Twenty-one years after the then-ground-breaking forensics crime drama CSI: Crime Scene Investigation debuted on CBS-TV, that same network plans a sequel. Writes Deadline’s Nellie Andreeva:
The original CSI premiered in October 2000, and went off the air in 2015, after spawning three sequels: CSI: Miami, CSI: New York, and CSI: Cyber. The last of those was also the final installment of the CSI TV franchise to disappear from the boob tube, in March 2016.
(Hat tip to In Reference to Murder.)
Paula Newsome, Matt Lauria and Mel Rodriguez have been cast as leads in CSI: Vegas, which is nearing a formal straight-to-series order at CBS, I have learned.Andreeva adds that “the original idea was for the event series to debut in October 2020, marking the 20th anniversary of the mothership series’ premiere. That plan was thwarted by the coronavirus pandemic-related production shutdown.”
I hear William Petersen and Jorja Fox are finalizing their deals to star in CSI: Vegas, ... reprising their roles as Gil Grissom and Sara Sidle, respectively. While billed as an event series, I hear CSI: Vegas, from writer Jason Tracey (Elementary), CBS Studios and Jerry Bruckheimer TV, could become an ongoing series running for multiple seasons.
With CSI: Vegas, the most-watched drama series of the 21st century, CSI, opens a new chapter in Las Vegas, the city where it all began. Facing an existential threat that could bring down the Crime Lab, a brilliant team of forensic investigators must welcome back old friends and deploy new techniques to preserve and serve justice in Sin City.
The original CSI premiered in October 2000, and went off the air in 2015, after spawning three sequels: CSI: Miami, CSI: New York, and CSI: Cyber. The last of those was also the final installment of the CSI TV franchise to disappear from the boob tube, in March 2016.
(Hat tip to In Reference to Murder.)
Friday, October 13, 2017
Bullet Points: Bouchercon Week Edition
• Denise Mina’s latest novel, The Long Drop, doesn’t lack for honors. In addition to its win, in September, of this year’s McIlvanney Prize, the book has now nabbed the Gordon Burn Prize. That report was made on Thursday during England’s Durham Book Festival. The Long Drop bested five other shortlisted nominees to win the commendation, which was named in honor of Gordon Burn, the British author of such books as Alma Cogan and Sex & Violence, Death & Silence.
• Among this year’s 24 recipients of MacArthur Foundation “genius grants” is Viet Thanh Nguyen, author of the Vietnam-set spy novel, The Sympathizer, which won both a Pulitzer Prize and a 2016 Edgar Award. To learn more about Nguyen, refer to this “By the Book” piece that ran in The New York Times in early 2017.
• “Now that Robert Downey Jr. and HBO are prepping a new cable take on Erle Stanley Gardner’s iconic Perry Mason, this may be a good time to consider the famous defense attorney’s many and various appearances other than between book covers.” So opines Dick Lochte in a Mystery Scene article that looks back at how Mason was portrayed not only on TV, but on radio, in movies, and even in comics.
• Speaking of the TV series Perry Mason, here is MeTV’s list of unusual episodes from that 1957-1966 legal drama. “Have you seen the one in color and the one starring Bette Davis?” the story asks in its subhead. Or how about the one starring Mike Connors?
• There have already been multiple big-screen and TV adaptations of Wilkie Collins’ 1859 “sensation novel,” The Woman in White, including what I remember was an estimable, 1997 BBC version (watch the trailer here) scripted by Dark Water author David Pirie. Yet now comes BBC One with yet another, five-episode dramatization of the spooky tale, this one starring Ben Hardy (EastEnders) and Olivia Vinall (Apple Tree Yard), and due for airing in the UK in 2018.
• Well in advance of that will premiere Edgar Allan Poe: Buried Alive, a documentary film—part of PBS-TV’s American Masters series—that “draws on Poe’s evocative imagery and sharply drawn plots to tell the real story of the notorious author …,” according to a news release. “An orphan in search of family, love and literary fame, Poe struggled with alcoholism and was also a product of early 19th-century American urban life: depressed from the era’s culture of death due to the high mortality rate and the struggles of living in poverty. Poe famously died under mysterious circumstances and his cause of death remains unknown.” Edgar Allan Poe: Buried Alive is scheduled for broadcast on Monday, October 30, beginning at 9 p.m. ET/PT—a pre-Halloween treat! The trailer for this presentation is embedded below.
• Yes, All Hallows’ Eve is now a little more than two weeks away. So expect plenty of related features to show up online, such as this BookBub Blog post recommending “20 Creepy New Books to Read This Halloween.” Also check out this Literary Hub offering of “40 of the Creepiest Book Covers of All Time.” Meanwhile, the New York City-obsessed blog, The Bowery Boys, has put together what it calls “brand-new, mysterious podcasts that will send a shiver down your spine.”
• I mentioned on this page in July that Tom Nolan, who edited the Library of America omnibus Ross Macdonald: Four Later Novels: Black Money/The Instant Enemy/The Goodbye Look/The Underground Man, was composing essays about all of those Lew Archer private-eye stories. I see that three of them are now available for your investigation—his thoughtful takes on Black Money (1966), The Instant Enemy (1968), and The Goodbye Look (1969). I look forward to reading what Nolan has to say about The Underground Man (1971), which is one of my favorites among Macdonald’s Archer yarns and was adapted as a 1974 TV pilot starring Peter Graves.
• When James Bond didn’t like The Beatles …
• … And how he was deeply affected by World War II.
• In a diverse recent blog post, Max Allan Collins mentioned that he has delivered the manuscript for Killing Town, his 10th Mike Hammer novel developed from fragmentary material Mickey Spillane left behind at the time of his death in 2006. Collins goes on to explain that Killing Town (due out from Titan next April) is “chronologically the first Mike Hammer novel,” and that he composed it based on “a substantial (60 double-spaced pages) Spillane manuscript from around 1945 … before I, the Jury!! It has an ending that will either delight, outrage, or disgust you … perhaps all at the same time.” Killing Town, concludes Collins, “will join The Last Stand [due out from Hard Case Crime next March] in the celebration of Mickey’s centenary, the first Mike Hammer novel bookending the final Spillane solo novel.”
• Sometime Rap Sheet contributor Mark Coggins sent me a notice he discovered recently in the newsletter Publisher’s Lunch:
• Let’s hope this eventually reaches the United States! From Mystery Tribune: “Scandinavian crime fans will be pleased to know that Sagafilm’s new drama Stella Blómkvist, starring Heida Reed (Poldark) and directed by Oskar Thor Axelsson (Trapped), will soon come to life via Nordic streaming service Viaplay. The series is based on a series of novels that follow a hard-nosed lawyer named Stella Blómkvist as she takes on mysterious murder cases.”
• Gadzooks! The DVD release of C.S.I.—The Complete Series will be a “93-disc set includ[ing] 19 hours of special features, all 15 seasons, and all 337 episodes, plus the 2-hour finale.” I’m not sure I can even accommodate such a sizable package among my DVD collection. This CBS Home Entertainment/Paramount Home Media set will become available as of November 21, according to TV Shows on DVD.
• For the Mulholland Books site, Portland, Oregon, science-fiction author Fonda Lee (Jade City) has cobbled together a rundown of what she says are the “Top Ten Fantasy Crime Novels.”
• David Cranmer is doing a bang-up job, for Criminal Element, of celebrating the centennial of Robert Mitchum’s birth. He’s written over the last three months about Mitchum’s Western films, his noir pictures, and yesterday he recalled the actor’s war movies (including the 1983 TV mini-series The Winds of War). Mitchum, writes Cranmer, projected “the great inner strength of tight-lipped heroes who fought the good fight, usually against staggering odds.”
• Linwood Barclay talks with Suspense Radio about his latest novel, Parting Shot, which is due out on October 31. Listen here.
• Hard to believe, I know, but it has been a full decade since the debut of Chuck, NBC-TV’s action-comedy/spy series starring Zachary Levi as computer-service specialist-turned-special agent Chuck Bartowski, and Yvonne Strahovski as his CIA protector,
Sarah Walker. In honor of this anniversary, TV Guide created a
video compilation of their most romantic moments from the show’s five seasons.
• From In Reference to Murder:
• Congratulations to The Spy Command on its ninth anniversary!
• I know it seems a bit early yet to talk about next spring’s Florida SleuthFest (March 1-4 in Boca Raton), what with Bouchercon 2017 still underway in Toronto. But the deadline for discounted early registration for SleuthFest is this coming September 30. And would-be authors who wish to arrange manuscript critiques must submit their work by January 31—just over three months from now. More generally, this annual writers’ conference (sponsored by the Florida Chapter of Mystery Writers of America) will have as its 2018 keynote speaker Andrew Gross, and Katherine Ramsland, Ph.D., has been tapped as forensic guest of honor. Other special guests will include James R. Benn and Hallie Ephron. More information can be found on the SleuthFest Web site or by contacting co-chairs Victoria Landis and Michael Joy via e-mail at Sleuthfestinfo@gmail.com.
• While we’re on the subject of near-future mystery-fiction festivals, I should also point out that discounted early registration for Left Coast Crime 2018 (March 22-25 in Reno, Nevada) is available only through December 31 of our present year. The guest of honors at that gathering will be Naomi Hirahara and William Kent Krueger.
• And let’s conclude here with links to a few author interviews worthy of your attention: John McFetridge, who played a large role in organizing this week’s Bouchercon in Toronto, talks with S.W. Lauden about his very underappreciated novels; MysteryPeople chats with both Adam Sternbergh (The Blinds) and J.M. Gulvin (The Long Count); Lisa Scottoline (Damaged) and Jussi Adler-Olsen (The Scarred Woman) field questions from Crimespree Magazine; J.J. Hensley discusses Bolt Action Remedy with the UK site Crime Fiction Lover; and Paul Bishop grills Greg Shepherd, the publisher of Stark House Press. Although it’s an essay rather than a Q & A, I want to mention as well Russian writer Polina Dashkova’s piece for BoingBoing about how she came to concoct her new-in-America thriller, Madness Treads Lightly.
• Among this year’s 24 recipients of MacArthur Foundation “genius grants” is Viet Thanh Nguyen, author of the Vietnam-set spy novel, The Sympathizer, which won both a Pulitzer Prize and a 2016 Edgar Award. To learn more about Nguyen, refer to this “By the Book” piece that ran in The New York Times in early 2017.
• “Now that Robert Downey Jr. and HBO are prepping a new cable take on Erle Stanley Gardner’s iconic Perry Mason, this may be a good time to consider the famous defense attorney’s many and various appearances other than between book covers.” So opines Dick Lochte in a Mystery Scene article that looks back at how Mason was portrayed not only on TV, but on radio, in movies, and even in comics.
• Speaking of the TV series Perry Mason, here is MeTV’s list of unusual episodes from that 1957-1966 legal drama. “Have you seen the one in color and the one starring Bette Davis?” the story asks in its subhead. Or how about the one starring Mike Connors?
• There have already been multiple big-screen and TV adaptations of Wilkie Collins’ 1859 “sensation novel,” The Woman in White, including what I remember was an estimable, 1997 BBC version (watch the trailer here) scripted by Dark Water author David Pirie. Yet now comes BBC One with yet another, five-episode dramatization of the spooky tale, this one starring Ben Hardy (EastEnders) and Olivia Vinall (Apple Tree Yard), and due for airing in the UK in 2018.
• Well in advance of that will premiere Edgar Allan Poe: Buried Alive, a documentary film—part of PBS-TV’s American Masters series—that “draws on Poe’s evocative imagery and sharply drawn plots to tell the real story of the notorious author …,” according to a news release. “An orphan in search of family, love and literary fame, Poe struggled with alcoholism and was also a product of early 19th-century American urban life: depressed from the era’s culture of death due to the high mortality rate and the struggles of living in poverty. Poe famously died under mysterious circumstances and his cause of death remains unknown.” Edgar Allan Poe: Buried Alive is scheduled for broadcast on Monday, October 30, beginning at 9 p.m. ET/PT—a pre-Halloween treat! The trailer for this presentation is embedded below.
• Yes, All Hallows’ Eve is now a little more than two weeks away. So expect plenty of related features to show up online, such as this BookBub Blog post recommending “20 Creepy New Books to Read This Halloween.” Also check out this Literary Hub offering of “40 of the Creepiest Book Covers of All Time.” Meanwhile, the New York City-obsessed blog, The Bowery Boys, has put together what it calls “brand-new, mysterious podcasts that will send a shiver down your spine.”
• I mentioned on this page in July that Tom Nolan, who edited the Library of America omnibus Ross Macdonald: Four Later Novels: Black Money/The Instant Enemy/The Goodbye Look/The Underground Man, was composing essays about all of those Lew Archer private-eye stories. I see that three of them are now available for your investigation—his thoughtful takes on Black Money (1966), The Instant Enemy (1968), and The Goodbye Look (1969). I look forward to reading what Nolan has to say about The Underground Man (1971), which is one of my favorites among Macdonald’s Archer yarns and was adapted as a 1974 TV pilot starring Peter Graves.
• When James Bond didn’t like The Beatles …
• … And how he was deeply affected by World War II.
• In a diverse recent blog post, Max Allan Collins mentioned that he has delivered the manuscript for Killing Town, his 10th Mike Hammer novel developed from fragmentary material Mickey Spillane left behind at the time of his death in 2006. Collins goes on to explain that Killing Town (due out from Titan next April) is “chronologically the first Mike Hammer novel,” and that he composed it based on “a substantial (60 double-spaced pages) Spillane manuscript from around 1945 … before I, the Jury!! It has an ending that will either delight, outrage, or disgust you … perhaps all at the same time.” Killing Town, concludes Collins, “will join The Last Stand [due out from Hard Case Crime next March] in the celebration of Mickey’s centenary, the first Mike Hammer novel bookending the final Spillane solo novel.”
• Sometime Rap Sheet contributor Mark Coggins sent me a notice he discovered recently in the newsletter Publisher’s Lunch:
Following the death of [book agent] Ed Victor (and before that, in fall 2016, the death of [UK publisher] Graham Greene), the Raymond Chandler estate has selected new representation. They are working with Peter Straus at Rogers, Coleridge & White for publishing, and Stephen Durbridge and Katie Haines at The Agency for film and TV. Greene’s son Alexander, director of Raymond Chandler Ltd., says in the release: “In choosing Peter and RCW and Stephen and the Agency we wanted to reintroduce Chandler to an audience who perhaps recognize his style but don’t immediately associate it with him or his archetypal character Philip Marlowe.”One can only speculate as to the eventual results of these altered business associations. Could we be provided more literary revivals of Los Angeles private eye Marlowe? Another crack at a Marlowe TV series, or more new Marlowe films?
• Let’s hope this eventually reaches the United States! From Mystery Tribune: “Scandinavian crime fans will be pleased to know that Sagafilm’s new drama Stella Blómkvist, starring Heida Reed (Poldark) and directed by Oskar Thor Axelsson (Trapped), will soon come to life via Nordic streaming service Viaplay. The series is based on a series of novels that follow a hard-nosed lawyer named Stella Blómkvist as she takes on mysterious murder cases.”
• Gadzooks! The DVD release of C.S.I.—The Complete Series will be a “93-disc set includ[ing] 19 hours of special features, all 15 seasons, and all 337 episodes, plus the 2-hour finale.” I’m not sure I can even accommodate such a sizable package among my DVD collection. This CBS Home Entertainment/Paramount Home Media set will become available as of November 21, according to TV Shows on DVD.
• For the Mulholland Books site, Portland, Oregon, science-fiction author Fonda Lee (Jade City) has cobbled together a rundown of what she says are the “Top Ten Fantasy Crime Novels.”
• David Cranmer is doing a bang-up job, for Criminal Element, of celebrating the centennial of Robert Mitchum’s birth. He’s written over the last three months about Mitchum’s Western films, his noir pictures, and yesterday he recalled the actor’s war movies (including the 1983 TV mini-series The Winds of War). Mitchum, writes Cranmer, projected “the great inner strength of tight-lipped heroes who fought the good fight, usually against staggering odds.”
• Linwood Barclay talks with Suspense Radio about his latest novel, Parting Shot, which is due out on October 31. Listen here.
• Hard to believe, I know, but it has been a full decade since the debut of Chuck, NBC-TV’s action-comedy/spy series starring Zachary Levi as computer-service specialist-turned-special agent Chuck Bartowski, and Yvonne Strahovski as his CIA protector,
Sarah Walker. In honor of this anniversary, TV Guide created a
video compilation of their most romantic moments from the show’s five seasons.• From In Reference to Murder:
Fox has given a script commitment plus penalty to The Dime, a crime drama with a lesbian cop at the center that’s based on bestselling author Kathleen Kent’s new novel, from Hell on Wheels creators Tony Gayton and Joe Gayton, feature director Matt Reeves (War for the Planet of the Apes), and 20th-Century Fox TV. Written and executive produced by the Gayton brothers, The Dime follows Brooklyn cop Betty Rhyzyck, a tough-as-nails firebrand who moves with her girlfriend to Dallas to lead a group of detectives. Their more traditional sensibilities are a far cry from her blue-state mentality, and in order to survive, Betty and her team will have to put aside their differences.• Marty McKee has an excellent piece in Johnny LaRue’s Crane Shot about the reworked sixth and final season of 77 Sunset Strip, which starred Efrem Zimbalist Jr. as Los Angeles private eye Stuart Bailey. To give that season “a kickstart,” McKee recalls, Warner Bros. “gave it a radical reboot. Everyone but Zimbalist was fired, and Bailey moved into a new office in the Bradbury Building as a solo act. New producers Jack Webb (Dragnet) and William Conrad … made the series less glossy and more noirish. While the new approach didn’t work—the series was cancelled after 20 episodes—it did give 77 a creative shot in the arm. To begin the sixth season, producer Conrad hired screenwriter Harry Essex (credited with Creature from the Black Lagoon, It Came from Outer Space, and I, the Jury) to concoct an ambitious five-part story that Conrad would also direct. The result was ‘5,’ which aired on consecutive Fridays in September and October 1963. Loaded with guest stars ranging from Richard Conte and Cesar Romero to Diane McBain and William Shatner, ‘5’ yanks Bailey out of L.A. to New York and even all the way to Israel to solve the case.” I wrote about that same multi-part episode of 77 Sunset Strip in this 2012 post.
• Congratulations to The Spy Command on its ninth anniversary!
• I know it seems a bit early yet to talk about next spring’s Florida SleuthFest (March 1-4 in Boca Raton), what with Bouchercon 2017 still underway in Toronto. But the deadline for discounted early registration for SleuthFest is this coming September 30. And would-be authors who wish to arrange manuscript critiques must submit their work by January 31—just over three months from now. More generally, this annual writers’ conference (sponsored by the Florida Chapter of Mystery Writers of America) will have as its 2018 keynote speaker Andrew Gross, and Katherine Ramsland, Ph.D., has been tapped as forensic guest of honor. Other special guests will include James R. Benn and Hallie Ephron. More information can be found on the SleuthFest Web site or by contacting co-chairs Victoria Landis and Michael Joy via e-mail at Sleuthfestinfo@gmail.com.
• While we’re on the subject of near-future mystery-fiction festivals, I should also point out that discounted early registration for Left Coast Crime 2018 (March 22-25 in Reno, Nevada) is available only through December 31 of our present year. The guest of honors at that gathering will be Naomi Hirahara and William Kent Krueger.
• And let’s conclude here with links to a few author interviews worthy of your attention: John McFetridge, who played a large role in organizing this week’s Bouchercon in Toronto, talks with S.W. Lauden about his very underappreciated novels; MysteryPeople chats with both Adam Sternbergh (The Blinds) and J.M. Gulvin (The Long Count); Lisa Scottoline (Damaged) and Jussi Adler-Olsen (The Scarred Woman) field questions from Crimespree Magazine; J.J. Hensley discusses Bolt Action Remedy with the UK site Crime Fiction Lover; and Paul Bishop grills Greg Shepherd, the publisher of Stark House Press. Although it’s an essay rather than a Q & A, I want to mention as well Russian writer Polina Dashkova’s piece for BoingBoing about how she came to concoct her new-in-America thriller, Madness Treads Lightly.
Thursday, October 30, 2014
Bullet Points: Eve of Haunts Edition
• Online voting has begun in the contest for the 2014 Bord Gáis Energy Irish Book Awards. There
are seven categories of nominees, but the one that may interest Rap Sheet readers most is the Ireland AM Crime Fiction Book of the Year. Here are the contenders:
-- Unravelling Oliver, by Liz Nugent (Penguin Ireland)
-- The Kill, by Jane Casey (Ebury Publishing)
-- The Final Silence, by Stuart Neville (Harvill Secker)
-- Can Anybody Help Me?, by Sinead Crowley (Quercus)
-- The Secret Place, by Tana French (Hachette Books Ireland)
-- Last Kiss, by Louise Phillips (Hachette Books Ireland)
Choose your favorites here. I don’t see anything about this competition being restricted to Irish citizens, but note that the voting will close at midnight on November 21.
• Unbidden but nonetheless willing, John Harvey--whose recent Charlie Resnick novel, Darkness, Darkness, I appreciated so much--has put together a list of what he says are his 25 favorite crime novels. “It will immediately become clear there are exceptions: no Hammett, no Chandler nor other ‘classic’ crime--so obvious that to mention them was, to my mind, unnecessary; and some writers--Michael Connelly would serve as an example--are not there on the grounds that the stream of their work is so strong, I would find it impossible to lift one prime example from the rest.” Among the novels that did merit inclusion are Megan Abbott’s The End of Everything, Kent Anderson’s Night Dogs, George V. Higgins’ The Friends of Eddie Coyle, and Daniel Woodrell’s Give Us a Kiss. You’ll find all of Harvey’s picks here.
• Who remembers the 1979 TV series A Man Called Sloane? My only recollection is that star Robert Conrad left another series, Stephen J. Cannell’s The Duke, after only a handful of episodes in order to play freelance spy Thomas R. Sloane III in this nearly as short-lived Quinn Martin production. Writer Christopher Mills, though, appreciated Sloane enough to compose an episode-by-episode series of posts in a blog called Spy-fi Channel. That blog is now defunct, but Mills is in the midst of revising those Sloane posts (“editing them a bit and adding a few new thoughts and observations”) for another of his blogs, Atomic Pulp and Other Meltdowns. Keep up with his series here.
• The latest update of The Thrilling Detective Web Site is now live. It includes editor Kevin Burton Smith’s “spontaneous tribute” to the late Rockford Files star, James Garner, and expanded entries on characters ranging from Stryker McBride and Joey Fly to Yakov Semenovich Stern and Steve Allen’s Los Angeles gumshoe, Roger Dale. Smith also brings the welcome news that Thrilling Detective finally has “a decent search engine,” which you can access here.
• I must admit, I envy author-educator Art Taylor for his recent opportunity to interview Otto Penzler on behalf of the Los Angeles Review of Books. They had a nice long talk about editor Penzler’s work on a couple of new short-story collections, The Best American Mystery Stories of the 19th Century (which I reviewed here) and The Black Lizard Big Book of Locked-Room Mysteries. Penzler also clues Taylor in on what he’s been working on “since January”: another major compilation, The Big Book of Sherlock Holmes Stories.
• Edward A. Grainger (aka David Cranmer) asks, in Criminal Element, why Mark Twain’s Tom Sawyer, Detective (1896) hasn’t received more attention over the years--why has it “slipped through the cracks of popular reading?” He suggests it’s “because nothing can live up to the Great American Novel--Huckleberry Finn--that preceded it. Ernest Hemingway famously said, ‘All modern American literature comes from one book by Mark Twain called Huckleberry Finn. American writing comes from that. There was nothing before. There has been nothing as good since.’ No such praise met Tom Sawyer: Detective, with the British Guardian’s original review harshly noting, ‘The whole story is poorly conceived and badly put together.’”
• Although I’ve missed the actual anniversary, I still want to bring attention to the fact that last week the Paul Newman-Robert Redford picture Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid marked 45 years since its general release on October 24, 1969. I’ve watched that romantic adventure many times, and hope for multiple more viewings. It’s just a fantastic film, with one of the best knife-fight scenes ever!
• There are now only two weeks left before the start of Bouchercon 2014 in Long Beach. In his BOLO Books blog, Kristopher Zgorski offers a selection of interesting “non-panel-related activities which will be happening during the conference.” Those include the “Author Speed Dating” event scheduled to be held at 8:30 a.m. on Thursday, November 13, during which more than 100 authors will “pitch” their books to Bouchercon attendees, hoping to attract new readers.
• Haven’t registered for Bouchercon? You can still do it here.
• Apparently, author Max Allan Collins (for whom the adjective “prolific” seems to have been invented) composed the liner notes for a new eight-CD set called Jazz on Fillm: Crime Jazz. He describes the line-up of pieces as “astonishing”: “77 Sunset Strip,” “Hawaiian Eye,” “Checkmate,” “Shotgun Slade,” “The Naked City,” “Richard Diamond,” “Bourbon Street Beat,” “M-Squad,” “The Untouchables,” “Peter Gunn,” “Mr. Lucky,” “Staccato” and “Mickey Spillane’s Mike Hammer”--“both the TV series soundtrack and the music from the rare Stan Purdy ‘Mickey Spillane’s Mike Hammer Story’ LP,” Collins explains. A list of the musicians represented in this CD set is here.
• Patricia Highsmith--comic book writer?
• One of my fellow Kirkus Reviews bloggers, John DeNardo, this week posted a list of “10 Things This Fan Was Surprised to Learn About Science Fiction.” I was no less taken aback by one of his factoids:
• I’m not convinced that we really need a new, American version of Wire in the Blood, the British ITV series that ran from 2002 to 2008 and was based on Val McDermid’s novels about a university clinical psychologist who works with police on serial-killer cases. Yet Crimespree Magazine brings word that ABC-TV is developing such a program with the help of a couple of veterans from the underappreciated Detroit 1-8-7. I know I’ve asked this before (and I shall probably ask it again in the future), but why can’t Hollywood come up with new ideas, rather than recycling old ones?
• This doesn’t sound good: In Reference to Murder reports that “CBS reduced the episode order for CSI to 18 episodes, down from 22. The show is in its 15th season, and this is the first time the drama will have produced less than a full season of episodes.”
• While looking back on the 1959 thriller Night Without End, Vintage Pop Fictions remarks that its author, Alistair MacLean, “does not deserve the relative oblivion into which he has fallen.” I made that same point last year in this piece for Kirkus Reviews.
• Brian Drake interviews Anonymous-9 (aka Elaine Ash) on the subject of Bite Harder, the sequel to her 2013 novel, Hard Bite.
• Finally, since tomorrow is Halloween, I’d be remiss in not linking you up with a few associated postings around the Web. TopTenz chooses the “Top 10 Most Haunted Cities in America,” while The Bowery Boys--an excellent New York City history blog--looks back at Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s stunning announcement, in April 1922, of “an extraordinary discovery--the existence of ectoplasm, the ghostly goo that emits from mediums possessed with the spirits of the dead.” Publishers Weekly tries to identify “The 10 Best Ghost Stories,” but both The Poisoned Martini and Too Much Horror Fiction have other suggestions. Terence Towles Canote rounds up his favorite horror film postings from A Shroud of Thoughts, while Vintage45’s Blog revisits Randall and Hopkirk (Deceased), the 1969-1971 British TV program about a London private eye whose late partner is still helping him solve crimes--a show I previously wrote about here. And since this post can’t be completely serious, check out Cracked History’s eye-catching rundown of the “10 Sexiest Halloween Costumes.”
-- Unravelling Oliver, by Liz Nugent (Penguin Ireland)
-- The Kill, by Jane Casey (Ebury Publishing)
-- The Final Silence, by Stuart Neville (Harvill Secker)
-- Can Anybody Help Me?, by Sinead Crowley (Quercus)
-- The Secret Place, by Tana French (Hachette Books Ireland)
-- Last Kiss, by Louise Phillips (Hachette Books Ireland)
Choose your favorites here. I don’t see anything about this competition being restricted to Irish citizens, but note that the voting will close at midnight on November 21.
• Unbidden but nonetheless willing, John Harvey--whose recent Charlie Resnick novel, Darkness, Darkness, I appreciated so much--has put together a list of what he says are his 25 favorite crime novels. “It will immediately become clear there are exceptions: no Hammett, no Chandler nor other ‘classic’ crime--so obvious that to mention them was, to my mind, unnecessary; and some writers--Michael Connelly would serve as an example--are not there on the grounds that the stream of their work is so strong, I would find it impossible to lift one prime example from the rest.” Among the novels that did merit inclusion are Megan Abbott’s The End of Everything, Kent Anderson’s Night Dogs, George V. Higgins’ The Friends of Eddie Coyle, and Daniel Woodrell’s Give Us a Kiss. You’ll find all of Harvey’s picks here.
• Who remembers the 1979 TV series A Man Called Sloane? My only recollection is that star Robert Conrad left another series, Stephen J. Cannell’s The Duke, after only a handful of episodes in order to play freelance spy Thomas R. Sloane III in this nearly as short-lived Quinn Martin production. Writer Christopher Mills, though, appreciated Sloane enough to compose an episode-by-episode series of posts in a blog called Spy-fi Channel. That blog is now defunct, but Mills is in the midst of revising those Sloane posts (“editing them a bit and adding a few new thoughts and observations”) for another of his blogs, Atomic Pulp and Other Meltdowns. Keep up with his series here.
• The latest update of The Thrilling Detective Web Site is now live. It includes editor Kevin Burton Smith’s “spontaneous tribute” to the late Rockford Files star, James Garner, and expanded entries on characters ranging from Stryker McBride and Joey Fly to Yakov Semenovich Stern and Steve Allen’s Los Angeles gumshoe, Roger Dale. Smith also brings the welcome news that Thrilling Detective finally has “a decent search engine,” which you can access here.
• I must admit, I envy author-educator Art Taylor for his recent opportunity to interview Otto Penzler on behalf of the Los Angeles Review of Books. They had a nice long talk about editor Penzler’s work on a couple of new short-story collections, The Best American Mystery Stories of the 19th Century (which I reviewed here) and The Black Lizard Big Book of Locked-Room Mysteries. Penzler also clues Taylor in on what he’s been working on “since January”: another major compilation, The Big Book of Sherlock Holmes Stories.
• Edward A. Grainger (aka David Cranmer) asks, in Criminal Element, why Mark Twain’s Tom Sawyer, Detective (1896) hasn’t received more attention over the years--why has it “slipped through the cracks of popular reading?” He suggests it’s “because nothing can live up to the Great American Novel--Huckleberry Finn--that preceded it. Ernest Hemingway famously said, ‘All modern American literature comes from one book by Mark Twain called Huckleberry Finn. American writing comes from that. There was nothing before. There has been nothing as good since.’ No such praise met Tom Sawyer: Detective, with the British Guardian’s original review harshly noting, ‘The whole story is poorly conceived and badly put together.’”
• Although I’ve missed the actual anniversary, I still want to bring attention to the fact that last week the Paul Newman-Robert Redford picture Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid marked 45 years since its general release on October 24, 1969. I’ve watched that romantic adventure many times, and hope for multiple more viewings. It’s just a fantastic film, with one of the best knife-fight scenes ever!
• There are now only two weeks left before the start of Bouchercon 2014 in Long Beach. In his BOLO Books blog, Kristopher Zgorski offers a selection of interesting “non-panel-related activities which will be happening during the conference.” Those include the “Author Speed Dating” event scheduled to be held at 8:30 a.m. on Thursday, November 13, during which more than 100 authors will “pitch” their books to Bouchercon attendees, hoping to attract new readers.
• Haven’t registered for Bouchercon? You can still do it here.
• Apparently, author Max Allan Collins (for whom the adjective “prolific” seems to have been invented) composed the liner notes for a new eight-CD set called Jazz on Fillm: Crime Jazz. He describes the line-up of pieces as “astonishing”: “77 Sunset Strip,” “Hawaiian Eye,” “Checkmate,” “Shotgun Slade,” “The Naked City,” “Richard Diamond,” “Bourbon Street Beat,” “M-Squad,” “The Untouchables,” “Peter Gunn,” “Mr. Lucky,” “Staccato” and “Mickey Spillane’s Mike Hammer”--“both the TV series soundtrack and the music from the rare Stan Purdy ‘Mickey Spillane’s Mike Hammer Story’ LP,” Collins explains. A list of the musicians represented in this CD set is here.
• Patricia Highsmith--comic book writer?
• One of my fellow Kirkus Reviews bloggers, John DeNardo, this week posted a list of “10 Things This Fan Was Surprised to Learn About Science Fiction.” I was no less taken aback by one of his factoids:
Robert A. Heinlein’s 1961 novel Stranger in a Strange Land is about a man named Valentine Michael Smith who was born and raised on Mars. The story concerns Smith’s trip to Earth and his first-ever interaction with Earth culture. The book is considered one of the most popular science-fiction novels of all time. What surprised me was learning that in 1968, the book inspired a man to found a Neopagan religious organization modeled after the religion founded by Smith in the novel, the beliefs of which include polyamory, social libertarianism and non-mainstream family structures.You learn something new (and maybe weird) every day, I guess.
• I’m not convinced that we really need a new, American version of Wire in the Blood, the British ITV series that ran from 2002 to 2008 and was based on Val McDermid’s novels about a university clinical psychologist who works with police on serial-killer cases. Yet Crimespree Magazine brings word that ABC-TV is developing such a program with the help of a couple of veterans from the underappreciated Detroit 1-8-7. I know I’ve asked this before (and I shall probably ask it again in the future), but why can’t Hollywood come up with new ideas, rather than recycling old ones?
• This doesn’t sound good: In Reference to Murder reports that “CBS reduced the episode order for CSI to 18 episodes, down from 22. The show is in its 15th season, and this is the first time the drama will have produced less than a full season of episodes.”
• While looking back on the 1959 thriller Night Without End, Vintage Pop Fictions remarks that its author, Alistair MacLean, “does not deserve the relative oblivion into which he has fallen.” I made that same point last year in this piece for Kirkus Reviews.
• Brian Drake interviews Anonymous-9 (aka Elaine Ash) on the subject of Bite Harder, the sequel to her 2013 novel, Hard Bite.
• Finally, since tomorrow is Halloween, I’d be remiss in not linking you up with a few associated postings around the Web. TopTenz chooses the “Top 10 Most Haunted Cities in America,” while The Bowery Boys--an excellent New York City history blog--looks back at Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s stunning announcement, in April 1922, of “an extraordinary discovery--the existence of ectoplasm, the ghostly goo that emits from mediums possessed with the spirits of the dead.” Publishers Weekly tries to identify “The 10 Best Ghost Stories,” but both The Poisoned Martini and Too Much Horror Fiction have other suggestions. Terence Towles Canote rounds up his favorite horror film postings from A Shroud of Thoughts, while Vintage45’s Blog revisits Randall and Hopkirk (Deceased), the 1969-1971 British TV program about a London private eye whose late partner is still helping him solve crimes--a show I previously wrote about here. And since this post can’t be completely serious, check out Cracked History’s eye-catching rundown of the “10 Sexiest Halloween Costumes.”
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