(Editor’s note: This coming Thursday, February 9, will bring the debut—in both the United States and Great Britain—ofLove Me Fierce in Danger: The Life of James Ellroy[Bloomsbury Academic], an almost 400-page biography of the multifaceted, oft-troubled but celebrated Los Angeles-born author, written by Steven Powell. An Honorary Fellow in the English Department at the University of Liverpool, UK, Powell is the author of such previous books asConversations with James Ellroy[2012],James Ellroy: Demon Dog of Crime Fiction[2015], andThe Big Somewhere[2018]. Additionally, he edited the encyclopedic work100 American Crime Writers[2012]. In the essay below, Powell delivers brief background on his experiences in preparing Love Me Fierce in Danger, which critic-author Barry Forshaw calls “an essential purchase for anyone interested in modern American crime fiction, couched in prose that is as lively as its uncompromising subject.”)
When I was writing my biography of James Ellroy, Love Me Fierce in Danger: The Life of James Ellroy, the observation that resonated with me the most came from his second wife, Helen Knode: “James lives life like he was shot out of a cannon.” Sometimes non-fiction writers strike gold. I was blessed to have a fascinating subject in James Ellroy. He is the direct opposite of how many people envisage writers—withdrawn, reclusive, able to observe and document the world but unable to live in it. Ellroy is a larger-than-life figure, determined to leave his mark. His whirlwind existence dictated the pace of this biography. I found myself writing a page-turner. There were times in my research when I could barely keep pace with the events in Ellroy’s life and squeezing as many as possible onto the page became a real challenge without resorting to a seven-volume biography.
There are a multitude of dramatic events in Ellroy’s life and his family history for a biographer to explore—the unsolved murder of his mother, Jean Ellroy; his father’s time as Rita Hayworth’s business manager, which included planning her wedding to Prince Aly Khan; Ellroy’s descent into alcohol and drug abuse. His history of housebreaking, petty crime, jail time, ill health, brushes with death, and a redemptive embrace of sobriety. All of this happens before he even writes a word.
The literary career that followed that traumatic, gut-wrenching upbringing must surely be considered one of the most remarkable achievements in American crime-fiction writing, producing such modern classics as The Black Dahlia, L.A. Confidential, and American Tabloid. Ellroy has written two memoirs but neither one follows a linear chronology and both leave decades of his life unaccounted for. To include the full depth and breadth of his extraordinary life was quite the challenge, but I knew it could do it when I scored an early research coup. I was able to discover the identity of Jean Ellroy’s first husband—real estate heir Easton Ewing Spaulding. This had been a mystery even Ellroy had been unable to solve. It felt like a sign. Sure enough, everything began to fall into place from that point on. British publisher Bloomsbury offered me the contract to write the book, I won Ellroy’s trust, and it was time for me to reach out to everyone who had been involved in Ellroy’s life who was willing to talk.
(Above) Scholar and biographer Steven Powell.
The interviews were the most pleasurable part of the research, especially as most were conducted at the height of the COVID-19 lockdown and people were eager to talk, as indeed was I. The importance of human contact and being able to share memories, either good or bad, never seemed more important. Finding Ellroy’s old friends, partners, and ex-colleagues often required playing detective. Taking my lead from Ellroy and his memories of people he knew as far back as his school days, I would set out to find them. It could be complicated as people change their name, leave town, or even emigrate. I had to study property records, marriage and divorce certificates, and other forms of documentation to track people down. Digitization made it easier, and for those who have asked me why an Ellroy biography hasn’t appeared before now, I would answer that the scale of the challenge could only be met when the full potential of the Internet could be utilized. And yet, it was crucial I didn’t waste a day. Ellroy is a man in his 70s, many of his friends and colleagues are older. I interviewed his old friend, legendary crime novelist and attorney Andrew Vachss, only a few months before he died. Of the more than 80 interviews I conducted, I feel honored to have heard the testimony of this older generation in regard to the life and times of one of the most extraordinary American crime novelists of all time.
Love Me Fierce in Danger: The Life of James Ellroy is the product of those labors. Over the course of them all, Ellroy was generous and supportive. I only hope I’ve done him justice. After all, he set the standard in American literary history.
• For the second year in a row, the Mystery Writers of America will announce the winners of its latest Edgar Allan Poe Awards via a Zoom Webcast. Those ceremonies are scheduled to begin at 1 p.m. EDT on Thursday, April 29. Click here to register as a participant. If you’ve forgotten which books are authors have been nominated for commendation, that information is here.
• Tatiana Maslany, who played evangelical preacher Sister Alice McKeegan in Season 1 of HBO-TV’s Perry Mason series, will apparently not reprise that role during the show’s sophomore season. As ComingSoon.net reports, “Maslany’s exit … comes on the heels of [her] officially signing on for the lead role in Marvel Studios’ She-Hulk series, which may have also affected her schedule for Perry Mason. Production on the Disney+ series is expected to start soon.”
• Jason Diamond writes in GQ magazine that Peter Falk’s Columbo series has become “an unlikely quarantine hit.”
• Just a couple of months ago, I observed that the odds against there being a Season 3 of McDonald & Dodds, the ITV-TV crime drama starring Tala Gouveia and Jason Watkins, seemed terribly high. But wonders never cease, and The Killing Times now brings word that a third series of McDonald & Dodds has indeed been commissioned.
• In Reference to Murder says that “James Ellroy, the ‘Demon Dog’ of American literature, is teaming up with the podcast firm, Audio Up, for a five-part podcast series to launch in August. The author of L.A. Confidential and The Black Dahlia will produce and narrate the podcast, titled Hollywood Death Trip, which takes listeners on a nocturnal tour of murder and mayhem in Los Angeles with period music, archival radio, and cinematic sound design.” CrimeReads adds, “the podcast will be released shortly after Ellroy’s new novel, Widespread Panic, which will be published on June 15, 2021, [by] Alfred A. Knopf. Widespread Panic is the third novel in Ellroy’s ‘Second L.A. Quartet,’ following Perfidia and This Storm.”
• Earlier this month, blogger and Mystery Scene columnist Ben Boulden released an interesting e-book titled Killers, Crooks & Spies: Jack Bickham’s Fiction. If you aren’t familiar with Bickham (1930-1997), Boulden notes that he “wrote in every popular genre, except horror and romance (although he did write a few ‘sleaze’ novels for Midwood that may be a touch romantic). He started in Westerns in 1958, and finished with a posthumously published traditional mystery in 1998. Bickham wrote The Apple Dumpling Gang, which Disney translated into a 1975 box office hit. He wrote six espionage thrillers, featuring aging tennis pro Brad Smith, and so much more.” I can’t say I invest much in e-books, but after having come across Bickham’s novels in used bookshops many times over the years, Boulden’s overview of his life and writing career seemed worth having.
• For those who don’t remember it well, Bergerac was a 1981-1991 British television series set on the English Channel island of Jersey, in which John Nettles (later of Midsomer
Murders) starred as Jim Bergerac, a rather unorthodox police detective who eventually became a private eye. Even 28 years after the program went off the air, Bergerac remains popular, so it comes as no surprise that a reboot is currently in the works. Deadline reported on that development back in February, and now The Killing Times brings word that “the scripts for a new show are 99 per cent there, and officials are hoping the green light could be given in September.”
• Karen Abbott, author of the new non-fiction book, The Ghosts of Eden Park: The Bootleg King, the Women Who Pursued Him, and the Murder That Shocked Jazz-Age America (Crown), revisits, in CrimeReads, the central conflict fleshed out in her yarn, between U.S. Assistant Attorney General Mabel Walker Willebrandt—charged with enforcing Prohibition during the 1920s—and “George Remus: teetotaling bootlegger, erudite madman, and, reportedly, a real-life inspiration for Jay Gatsby.”
• While reading Abbott’s book, I was reminded of a previous use of Remus as a character, in Craig Holden’s 2002 novel, The Jazz Bird, about which I wrote a favorable review for January Magazine.
• OK, I’ll admit it: James Ellroy’s newest historical crime saga, This Storm (Knopf), is still sitting quietly beside my desk, waiting to be read. I am just not yet ready to dive into another of Ellroy’s grim explorations of America’s violent, racist past. But pieces such as this one, from The Stiletto Gumshoe (an anonymously composed blog that focuses on crime-related artistic endeavors almost as much as it does books), might finally push me into its pages.
• Enjoy this new map of London literary locations.
• On the occasion of what would beDorothy B. Hughes’ 115th birthday—tomorrow—Dwyer Murphy, my editor at CrimeReads, has collected “some of her finest, most unsettling lines” from Hughes’ many novels. “Together,” he remarks, “they offer up a glimpse of her dark world view, and they begin, but only begin, to capture that deep sense of dread that was such a trademark of Hughes’ fiction.” One of my favorites among these quotations comes from Dread Journey (1945): “She carried her head like a lady and her body like a snake.” You’ll find Murphy’s whole piece here.
• Scottish author Jay Stringer (Marah Chase and the Conqueror’s Tomb) writes in Do Some Damage about how he found his way back from a period of personal and professional darkness.
• Finally, Nicolás Suszczyk offers a tribute, in The Secret Agent Lair, to Rhode Island-born actor David Hedison, who died on July 18, aged 92. Hedison may be best remembered, of course, for his roles as Captain Lee Crane in the ABC-TV series Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea (1964-1968) and as CIA operative Felix Leiter in the James Bond flicks Live and Let Die (1973) and Licence to Kill (1989). “Those who have met him …,”: writes Suszczyk, “talked about his sympathy and sense of humour. There are others who didn’t share that luck, but it just takes watching a few seconds of any of his performances to perceive that warmth and kindness that went through the screen. He made us feel that, besides being a friend of James Bond, he was almost a friend of ours. Maybe this is why, despite his advanced age, we are still surprised and saddened for his departure.”
It’s been more than a couple of months since I’ve taken on the task of compiling crime-fiction news bits that don’t necessarily merit posts of their own ... which means I have a lot of information to impart. Fortunately, Seattle is heavily socked in with snow today, so I have little interest in spending much time outside in the cold. Better to snug in with a cup of coffee and my computer keyboard. Let us begin ...
• Lisbeth Salander fans, take note:BookRiot reports that “An unseen investigation by Stieg Larsson, the late journalist and author of the Millennium Trilogy, has come to light and will be revealed in a new true-crime book. Larsson was a leading expert on antidemocratic, right-wing, extremist organizations.” The site goes on to synopsize the plot of the new book, which is due out from AmazonCrossing in October:
On February 28, 1986, Swedish Prime Minister Olof Palme was shot dead in Stockholm. The crime is still unsolved today. It’s now known that
Larsson began his own investigation into the assassination—continuing the search until his own death. In 2014, journalist and documentary filmmaker, Jan Stocklassa gained access to the 20 boxes of Larsson’s research into the case.
In The Man Who Played with Fire: Stieg Larsson’s Lost Files and the Hunt for an Assassin, Stocklassa reveals new facts about the case and reveals the hitherto unknown research of the best-selling author in a fascinating true crime story. For the first time in many years, the police in Sweden have taken active measures to investigate a new suspect in the murder case and are pursuing leads based on the research revealed in Stocklassa’s book.
• What matters most is making money, right?The New Yorkerreported recently that Dan Mallory, the book editor turned author who—as “A.J. Finn”—penned last year’s best-selling The Woman in the Window, has made a variety of false assertions regarding his health, his education, and his career achievements. Mallory has since sought to excuse his actions, but his deceptions have left many folks in the publishing industry wary of the author. In The Washington Post, critic Ron Charles wrote: “If James Frey taught us anything with his infamous memoir, it’s that autobiographical claims can collapse into a million little pieces of exaggeration and deception. Mallory’s situation is different, though, if more bizarre. How do we reconsider a work of fiction—or any work of art—when confronted with troubling information about its creator?” Despite all of this controversy, Mallory’s publisher, HarperCollins, says it is holding firm on plans to bring out his sophomore novel in January 2020—a San Francisco-set yarn The New Yorker describes as “a story of revenge … involving a female thriller writer and an interviewer who learns of a dark past.”
• Julie Adams, an Iowa-born actress who co-starred opposite an amphibious “Gill man” in the 1954 movie The Creature from the Black Lagoon before going on to a long and prolific TV career, passed away in Los Angeles on February 3 at age 92. Among her many television roles were appearances on Hawaiian Eye, Perry Mason, Darren McGavin’s The Outsider, Ironside, Kolchak: The Night Stalker, Ellery Queen, Mannix, Cagney & Lacey, Murder, She Wrote, and Diagnosis: Murder. An interesting tidbit: Adams’ fleeting first marriage was to Leonard B. Stern, a screenwriter and producer responsible for such memorable series as Get Smart, McMillan & Wife, and The Snoop Sisters.
• Via Shotsmag Confidential comes news that Karin Slaughter’s 2018 novel, Pieces of Her, will become an eight-episode Netflix series directed—at least initially—by Lesli Linka Glatter. “The story,” explains the blog (quoting from a press release), “follows as an adrift young woman’s conception of her mother is forever changed after a Saturday afternoon trip to the mall together suddenly explodes into violence. As figures from her mother’s past start to resurface, she is forced to go on the run and on that journey, begins to piece together the truth of her mother’s previous identity and uncovers secrets of her childhood.”
• With Series 6 of Endeavour scheduled to debut in Great Britain tomorrow, February 10, ITV Magazine—a consumer periodical just launched last month by the show’s principal broadcasting network—has published a rather satisfying article about what viewers can expect from Endeavour’s latest four episodes. Chris Sullivan has posted scans of that piece in his blog, Morse, Lewis and Endeavour. Meanwhile, he has embedded a new morning TV show interview with a bushy-bearded Roger Allam, who plays Detective Chief Inspector Fred Thursday on the program opposite Shaun Evans, starring as Detective Sergeant Endeavour Morse.
USA Network has picked up to series its drama pilot Dare Me, based on Megan Abbott’s 2012 novel of the same name. Set in the world of competitive high school cheerleading, it follows the fraught relationship between two best friends (Herizen Guardiola and Mario Kelly) after a new coach (Willa Fitzgerald) arrives to bring their team to prominence. While the girls’ friendship is put to the test, their young lives are changed forever when a shocking crime rocks their quiet suburban world.
• Lawson also reports that “ABC has ordered the drama pilot Stumptown, inspired by the graphic novels published by Oni Press. It follows Dex Parios, a strong, assertive, and unapologetically sharp-witted Army veteran working as a P.I. in Portland, Oregon. With a complicated personal history and only herself to rely on, she solves other people’s messes with a blind eye toward her own.”
• As an unflagging fan of Lou Grant, the 1977-1982 CBS-TV series starring Ed Asner as the sometimes crusty city editor of a fictional Southern California daily newspaper called the Los Angeles Tribune, I was pleased to discover at least the vast majority of that show’s episodes are available for free on YouTube. The picture quality is sometimes less than ideal, but until I drop the dough for Shout! Factory’s DVD releases of all five seasons, it’s probably the best I can expect. If you want to learn more about this drama series—which was a spin-off from The Mary Tyler Moore Show—check out The Canonical Lou Grant Episode Guide. And I’ve added the main title sequences from the first three seasons of Lou Grant to The Rap Sheet’s YouTube page.
• Speaking of vintage shows, The Spy Command alerts me to the fact that La-La Land Records will soon release “Jerry Goldsmith[‘s] music to a mostly forgotten 1975 TV show, Archer.” Wikipedia explains that this is “a limited-edition soundtrack containing the one episode … Goldsmith scored (paired with a re-issue of the score to the film Warning Shot, from newly discovered better elements).” If you, too, have difficulties remembering Archer, let me point out that it was a short-lived NBC mid-season replacement series starred Brian Keith (Family Affair) as L.A. private investigator Lew Archer, the character so masterfully developed over three decades by Ross Macdonald. Keith’ show wasn’t awful, without ever being really good; I much preferred Peter Graves’ portrayal of the same protagonist in an unsuccessful 1974 TV pilot based on one of Macdonald’s later yarns, The Underground Man. And though, as one TV critic observed, Keith was mustered up “weary cynicism” enough to play Archer, he did not seem to respect the source material. In fact, Keith even had visions of moving the series’ setting from the City of Angels to Honolulu! Regardless, I’d like to get my hands on the six episodes of Archer that were originally broadcast, if only for nostalgic reasons. I might even be willing to purchase La-La Land’s presumably high-quality cut of Goldsmith’s Archer theme, if only because the version I have—and which is featured in The Spy Command’s post—is terrible.
(Above) J. Kingston Pierce and Chelsea Cain enjoy a bit of fun at Bouchercon 2011, high above St. Louis’ Gateway Arch.
• I have many fond memories of attending Bouchercon 2011, which took place in St. Louis, Missouri. But one of the few captured on film was my meeting with Portland, Oregon, author Chelsea Cain, who turned out to be personable, downright funny, and nowhere near as dark-spirited a woman as her fiction might suggest. So I was pleased to read that her 2014 novel, One Kick, has been adapted as a 12-part TV series titled Gone, scheduled for broadcast on WGN America, beginning on 9 p.m. ET/PT on Wednesday, February 27. Deadline Hollywood sums up the plot this way: “Gone follows the story of Kit ‘Kick’ Lannigan ([played by] Leven Rambin), survivor of a highly publicized child-abduction case, and 20-year veteran Frank Novak ([Chris]Noth), the FBI agent who rescued her. Years later, he recruits her to join a special task force dedicated to solving abductions and missing-persons cases. Paired with former Army intelligence officer John Bishop (Danny Pino), Lannigan uses her intuitive wit and martial arts
skills to solve cases and bring victims home.”
• Yet another Agatha Christie yarn appears due for big-screen treatment, with a possible 2020 release date. The Killing Times reports that UK screenwriter Sarah Phelps (The A.B.C. Murders, Murder by Innocence, And Then There Were None) “has signed up to adapt Christie’s [1961] stand-alone novel, The Pale Horse.”
• Ann Cleeves closed out her nine-volume Shetland Islands/Jimmy Perez series with last year’s Wild Fire. Fear not, though, for EuroCrime says she’s “turning her hand to a new series set in Devon.” The first of those new books, introducing Detective Matthew Venn, will be The Long Call, due out from Minotaur in September.
• Two other far-off releases to watch for: Kate Atkinson’s Big Sky (Little, Brown), her fifth novel starring Cambridge private eye Jackson Brodie, is scheduled for publication on both sides of the Atlanticin June; and Anne Perry will inaugurate a brand-new,
pre-World War II series, starring “intrepid photographer” Elena Standish, with the September release Death in Focus (Ballantine).
• Before we leave Ann Cleeves too far behind, a reminder should be issued that Series 5 of Shetland, starring Douglas Henshall as Detective Inspector Jimmy Perez, will debut in the UK on BBC One next
Tuesday, February 12. There’s no word yet n when those six new episodes will become available to Netflix users in the States.
• Among the digital audio series CrimeReads contributing editor Emily Stein showcases on her list of the “8 True-Crime Podcasts to Listen to in 2019” is The Murder Book, which premiered on January 28, and which Stein says “is the first podcast produced by bestselling crime novelist Michael Connelly.” She continues:
In Season 1, “The Tell Tale Bullet,” Connelly returns to his roots as a crime beat reporter to investigate a real, 30-year-old cold
case of a fatal carjacking in Hollywood, and of a murderer who walked free. Connelly promises that every season of Murder Book will end with a
crime solved; to get there, he employs a wide array of sources, including court recordings, wiretaps, and interviews with witnesses and detectives.
Complete with hardboiled narration and a jazzy soundtrack, Murder Book is the perfect podcast both for fans of true crime, and fans of classic noir. It also takes a serious look at the limitations and flaws of our criminal justice system, which leaves the listener with the unavoidable impression that in the past three decades, far too little has changed.
Listen to Connelly’s episodes on the Murder Book Web site or via Apple Podcasts. Full transcripts of each installment are also available on the Web site. New episodes drop every Monday for 10 or 12 weeks.
• One podcast that isn’t mentioned in Stein’s wrap-up is We Never Solved Anything. No, I’d never heard of it either, until its hosts e-mailed me an invitation to listen. As they explain, “It is a funny podcast where we explore a new unsolved mystery theme each week such as serial killers, spontaneous human combustion, and medical mystery stories.” Find the 11 existing episode here.
• Literary Hub’s Emily Temple chooses “10 Contemporary ‘Dickensian’ Novels,” including Donna Tartt’s The Goldfinch (2013), Sarah Waters’ Fingersmith (2002), and Peter Carey’s The True History of the Kelly
Gang (2001).
• “A great teacher is a gift. A great line editor is a miracle,” declares Nick
Ripatrazone, a staff writer for The Millions.
• The Winter 2018/2019 edition of Mystery Readers Journal—built around the theme “Mystery in the American South—“is available now as a PDF and will shortly be available in hardcopy …,” writes editor Janet Rudolph. “We had so many articles, author essays, and reviews, that we had to split this themed issue into two.” A list of contents for this new issue, plus info on buying a copy, can be found here.
• I periodically like to revisit episodes from the classic NBC Mystery Movie series Columbo. Knowing whodunit, and sometimes remembering exactly how the rumpled Los Angeles police lieutenant pins the blame, doesn’t spoil the re-watching one iota. Not long ago I came across this piece The Columbophile, revealing which four among the almost 70 episodes of that show were star Peter Falk’s favorites. “It might come as a surprise to fans,” writes the blog’s anonymous editor, “that pivotal episodes ‘Etude in Black’ and ‘Murder by the Book’ don’t feature here—particularly ‘Etude,’ which starred Falk’s BFF John Cassavetes. Instead, all of Falk’s personal favourites come from Seasons 3 or 5, when the show was more firmly established. Notably, three of the four are from
Season 5 alone. What does this tell us? Well for one thing it suggests that Falk was at his happiest in the crumpled raincoat once he had a couple of full seasons under his belt.”
• As we prepare for the June release of James Ellroy’s This Storm (Knopf)—book two in his “Second L.A. Quartet” (following 2014’s Perfidia)—Steve Powell, a British student of that author’s work, feels compelled to ask, “is James Ellroy losing his touch?” Writing in his blog, The Venetian Vase, Powell continues: “I’ve decided to broach the subject as the critical response to Ellroy’s last novel Perfidia was mixed, as were the reviews for his novel before that Blood’s a Rover. … I’ve sensed a certain weariness about Ellroy’s recent efforts when I talk with fans of the author. … So Ellroy cannot expect his new novel, This Storm, to be met with universal acclaim as critical opinion has started to shift. In fact, the opposite may be the case. Ellroy may have to win back some critics who are getting cynical about the author’s once unassailable reputation.”
• What a terrific couple of short-story titles, from classic crime-fiction magazines found here and here. On top of that, both of these publications feature cover art by the great Norman Saunders.
• New York bookshop proprietor and anthologist Otto Penzler continues to count down what he contends are the “Greatest Crime Films of All-Time.” Most recently he has considered The Ipcress File (1965), The Kennel Murder Case (1933), and The Glass Key (1942). Keep track of this developing series here.
• While we’re on the subject of Penzler, it should be mentioned that he will be partnering with Pegasus Books to launch Scarlet, an imprint “specializing in psychological suspense aimed at female readers.” Publishers Weeklyexplains: “The new venture has [tapped] Luisa Smith, longtime buying director at Book Passage, a Corte Madera, Ca., bookstore, to be Scarlet editor-in-chief. Nat Sobel, founder of the Nat Sobel Associates literary agency, will act as a consultant to the imprint. Scarlet will launch in winter 2020 with six to eight titles. The Scarlet list will be distributed by W.W. Norton, which also distributes the titles of its parent companies, Penzler Publishing and Pegasus Books.” Although there’s been some grumbling about the name Scarlet being applied to a literary line intended to promote women’s fiction and female authors (shades of Nathaniel
Hawthorne’s The Scarlet Letter!), and Penzler’s heated objections to the Mystery Writers of America’s decision to deny Linda Fairstein a Grand Master Award due to her involvement in a 1990 New York City rape-case prosecution left some authors questioning his compassion toward women, I look forward to seeing what Scarlet can contribute to the already rich field of psychological suspense novels.
• A similarly promising venture comes from Polis Books, which has announced the creation of Agora, an imprint designed to “focus on diverse voices, putting out between six and ten books per year.” Chantelle Aimée Osman will serve as the editor of this line, which plans to begin releasing books in the fall of 2019. Read more here.
• I’m not a big social-media user, but over the years I have established a Rap Sheet presence on Facebook, on Twitter, and on Google+. Now it appears that last page is set to vanish forever. I was recently given this warning:
In December 2018, we announced our decision to shut down Google+ for consumers in April 2019 due to low usage and challenges involved in maintaining a successful product that meets consumers’ expectations. We want to thank you for being part of Google+ and provide next steps, including how to download your photos and other content.
On April 2nd, your Google+ account and any Google+ pages you created will be shut down and we will begin deleting content from consumer Google+ accounts. Photos and videos from Google+ in your Album Archive and your Google+ pages will also be deleted. You can download and save your content, just make sure to do so before April. Note that photos and videos backed up in Google Photos will not be deleted.
The process of deleting content from consumer Google+ accounts, Google+ Pages, and Album Archive will take a few months, and content may remain through this time. For example, users may still see parts of their Google+ account via activity log and some consumer Google+ content may remain
visible to G Suite users until consumer Google+ is deleted.
I don’t remember when I signed up for Google+, but I know I only did so because fellow blogger Bill Crider already had. Thankfully, my contributions to The Rap Sheet’s page there have been minimal. I’ll keep updating it for as long as possible, but if you notice that the Google+ link available from the right-hand column of this blog disappears in the next couple of months, you’ll know why.
• In its latest look back at Edgar Award winners of the past, Criminal Element revisits one of my favorite private-eye novels of the past: 1958’s The Eighth Circle, by Stanley Ellin. Sadly, critic Joe Brosnan is too rigid in applying our modern social and sexual sensibilities to a work that was penned more than six decades ago.
• TV fandom is no crazier today than it’s always been. According to this 1959 newspaper report, overenthusiastic followers of the 1958-1964 ABC private-eye series 77 Sunset Strip flocked to the Los Angeles site that stood in for the agency’s offices.
Ever since last fall, when news spread of plans to produce a CBS-TV series based on L.A. Confidential, James Ellroy’s 1990 novel, I’ve assumed this project would make it past the pilot stage, and be picked for the fall 2018 small-screen schedule. But that optimism has taken a huge hit, with news that CBS has passed on the series.
There may be more to this story, however. Word is that L.A. Confidential may find a new home on a small-screen streaming service, either CBS All Access (where Star Trek: Discovery has gained a following) or Netflix. Deadline Hollywood reports:
L.A. Confidential was one of the best received pilots at CBS this season, described as beautifully shot with premium quality that could work on a streaming platform.
I hear L.A. Confidential producer CBS Studios, which last season was able to get its passed-on CW pilot Insatiable picked up to series at Netflix, plans to shop it to digital platforms. I hear sibling CBS All Access has first crack because of its corporate ties.
So far, there has been a perception that, as part of CBS All Access’ effort to establish its own identity, the platform has been reluctant to take in a project that originated on CBS.
Additionally, some say that the addition of L.A. Confidential may dilute CBS All Access’ upcoming drama series Strange Angel, which also is set in the 1950s. Others argue that both series could co-exist and could actually create stronger environment for both to do well.
Regardless of the outcome, there is a lot of good will for the pilot and a strong effort to find it a new home.
• I just caught up with this piece from The Economist, titled “To Understand Britian, Read Its Spy Novels,” in which Walter Bagehot asserts that “The spy novel is the quintessential British fictional form in the same way that the Western is quintessentially American. Britain’s best spy novelists are so good precisely because they use the genre to explore what it is that makes Britain British: the obsession with secrecy, the nature of the establishment, the agonies of imperial decline, and the complicated tug of patriotism.”
• Only the other day I was remarking on my astonishment at seeing Steve Scott’s fine John D. MacDonald blog, The Trap of Solid Gold, suddenly return from what I had feared was its grave. I should note as well that Bookgasm, which disappeared completely in early December of last year, is also back with new reviews. Hurrah!
• Now for the bad news:Pornokitsch, a popular culture blog that does not really have anything to do with pornography (a poor name choice, indeed) will be shutting down at the end of this month, after a full decade of operation. As its termination draws near, however, the site seems to have become more active than ever.
Frequency’s Peyton List has been tapped as the female lead opposite Joseph Morgan in Fox’s untitled drama pilot based on the best-selling book Gone, Baby, Gone by Dennis Lehane. Laysla De Oliveira also has been cast as a series regular in the project, from 20th Century Fox TV and Miramax, which was behind the 2007 movie adaptation directed by Ben Affleck. Written by Black Sails co-creator Robert Levine and directed by Phillip Noyce, the untitled project centers on private detectives Patrick Kenzie (Joseph Morgan) and
Peyton List
Angela Gennaro (List) who, armed with their wits, their street knowledge and an undeniable chemistry, right wrongs the law can’t in the working-class Boston borough of Dorchester.
• In other small-screen casting news, Deadline Hollywood reports that “Sarah Jones (Damnation, The Path) is set as a female lead in [the] CBS
drama pilot L.A. Confidential, based on James Ellroy’s classic noir novel.” It goes on to say this show will follow “three homicide detectives, a female reporter (Alana Arenas), and a Hollywood actress (Jones) whose paths intersect as the detectives pursue a sadistic serial killer among the secrets and lies of gritty, glamorous 1950s Los Angeles. Jones’s Lynn is a sharp Veronica Lake-like beauty, an aspiring Hollywood actress—and not one to compromise her principles. When she finds a best friend brutally murdered and Jack Vincennes (Walton Goggins) unexpectedly at the scene before she’s had time to call the police, Lynn knows she has something on the LAPD detective—and decides to use it to help solve the horrible crime. The role of Lynn was played by Kim Basinger in the 1997 movie L.A. Confidential, earning her an Oscar.”
• The fifth season of Endeavour, the acclaimed British crime drama and prequel to Colin Dexter’s Inspector Morse tales, hasn’t even begun running in the States (at best, we can hope for a late-summer debut). But it has already been renewed for a sixth season.
• If you just can’t stand waiting around to take in the further exploits of a young Detective Sergeant Endeavour Morse (played by Shaun Evans) and his mentor, Detective Inspector Fred Thursday (Roger Allam), note that the British TV blog Killing Times contains reviews of all six episodes in Series 5. (Endeavour was broadcast in the UK earlier this year.) Just beware of inevitable spoilers! Here are the necessary links: Episode 1; Episode 2; Episode 3; Episode 4; Episode 5; and Episode
6. Those last two installments are labeled as belonging to Series 4, rather than 5, but that’s an error.
• Incidentally, it was a year ago tomorrow—on March 21, 2017—that Morse creator Colin Dexter passed away at age 86.
• Series 4 of Shetland, starring Douglas Henshall
and based on/inspired by Ann Cleeves’ still-expanding series of novels, is another crime drama that hasn’t yet made it to U.S. screens. (The last of its six episodes was shown tonight in the UK.) Again, though, Killing Times has been recapping all of its episodes.
• Prior to the debut of either of those series, PBS-TV’s Masterpiece Mystery! has slated the broadcast of Unforgotten, described by Wikipedia as following “two London detectives, DCI Cassie Stuart (Nicola Walker) and DI Sunny Khan (Sanjeev Bhaskar), as they work together to solve cold cases involving historic disappearances and murders.” Janet Rudolph points out that this program is set to run on Sunday nights from April 8 through May 13. “Unforgotten,” she adds, “is a really thoughtful, well-acted and -plotted detective show, and there are two seasons that will be aired. I binged the first season and found it mesmerizing. I highly recommend it.”
• This is unfortunate—and rather weird—news. Last week, just a few months after Spinetingler Magazine debuted its first print edition in years (you can still purchase a copy here), editor and owner Jack Getze posted word that “current Fiction Editor Sandra Ruttan has resigned, effective immediately.” He went on to say,
We’ve had a serious and unsolvable disagreement about current and future issues. Since I cannot run this magazine by myself, Spinetingler will close sometime this Spring.
To those writers who have received acceptances from me, my plan is to publish your stories before we disappear. Let me know if you’d rather pull the story and resubmit elsewhere. As to the writers contacted by Sandra for an upcoming print issue, please contact me if you’d like your story to run online. There will not be another Spinetingler print issue and you are free to resubmit elsewhere.
In a Facebook post appearing around the same time, Ruttan—who, in 2005, co-founded the magazine with K. Robert Einarson—wrote: “My vision for Spinetingler was always about finding the story I was excited to publish and putting out quality material, promoting great fiction. The direction is changing, so it’s time for me to go.”
• Just before I finished assembling this extensive edition of “Bullet Points,” I saw a note in Sandra Seamans’ My Little Corner blog, reading: “I’m not sure why, but the Spinetingler website has disappeared. I know they were closing down but they were supposed to be publishing more stories.” Seamans goes on to observe that “Spinetinger editors Sandra Ruttan and Brian Lindenmuth are starting up a new crime magazine called Toe Six Press.”
• Kim Fay has a nice piece in the Los Angeles Review of Books about the cultural complexities Sujata Massey dealt with in writing The Widows of Malabar Hill, set in 1920s Bombay, India.
• Oh, how I wish I were in London, England! Through this coming Saturday, March 24, that city’s Lever Gallery, in Clerkenwell, is hosting “Uncovered: Illustrating the Sixties and Seventies,” a showcase of the original art from paperback covers of that era. “Artists selected for this exhibition,” explains the gallery’s Web site, “include Ian Robertson, Yorkshire born Michael Johnson, who, with his Fine Art background and distinctive style, soon became one of the most sought after illustrators of the period, and a group of Italian illustrators who worked and lived around Soho and Chelsea, including the highly influential and style-setting Renato
Fratini, and other colleagues—many of whom had previously worked in the Italian film industry, such as Gianluigi Coppola, Giorgio De Gaspari, and Pino
Dell’Orco.” Flashbak, a photo-obsessed Internet resource, collects a handful of the more than 40 works on display, including Fratini paintings that grace several Mickey Spillane books (The Twisted Thing, The Girl Hunters, etc.) and Johnson’s gorgeous artwork for the 1965 novel A Crowd of Voices, by Richard Lortz. Flashbak’s presentation of these pieces is so captivating, I can even forgive the site its misuse of “pulp fiction” and its misspelling of Erle Stanley Gardner’s name. To see more of the works on display (sadly, in smaller representations), click here.
• Have you been enjoying “PaperBack,” the twice-weekly feature The Rap Sheet picked up from the late Bill Crider’s blog, focused on vintage book fronts? If so, you might also wish to sample “Thrift Shop Book Covers” in Ben Boulden’s Gravetapping. As Boulden explained when he launched that series back in late December 2013, “Thrift Shop Book Covers” features “the cover art and miscellany of books I find at thrift stores and used bookshops. It is reserved for books I purchased as much for the cover art as the story or author.“
• In case you missed seeing it, Killer Covers posted the concluding entry in its Harry Bennett tribute this last Saturday. All in all, the blog showcased more than 190 of Bennett’s painted paperback covers. It also posted this lengthy interview with Bennett’s youngest son, Tom. You can scroll through the full series here.
• Fox-TV’s longest-running animated sitcom, The Simpsons, saluted George Peppard’s 1972-1974 series, Banacek, in its most recent episode, “Homer Is Where the Art Isn’t.” The show found actor-comedian Bill Hader voicing the suave and sexy Manacek, described by AV Club as a “turtleneck-sporting [insurance] investigator who’ll either clear Homer of a major art theft or send the Simpson paterfamilias to prison for a very, very long time.” For folks (like me) who harbor fond memories of Banacek and the whole 1970s NBC Mystery Movie lineup, there was special delight to be found in this ep’s opening title sequence, which was based on the original Banacek intro, complete with Billy Goldenberg’s theme. Enjoy that segment below.
• It’s not easy keeping up with crime-fiction news. Yet David Nemeth is doing a bang-up job of it in his blog, Unlawful Acts. Nemeth’s weekly “Incident Report” posts are packed with leads to reviews, features, and other stories from all
over the Web. He even provides an assortment of new and forthcoming genre releases.
• New Zealand professor and author Liam McIlvanney (whose Where the Dead Men Go won the 2014 Ngaio Marsh Award for Best Crime Novel) has posted a thoughtful piece on his Web site addressing the newly launched Staunch Book Prize and ways to deal with violence against women in crime writing. Find his comments here.
• Television Obscurities reports that “Warner Archive’s streaming service is shutting down [after April 26]. Launched in 2013 as Warner Archive Instant, the service offered subscribers a mix of films, TV shows, and made-for-TV movies drawn from the Warner Bros. library. Some of the [vintage] TV shows available at one time or another [were] Cain’s Hundred, The Gallant Men, Man from Atlantis, Maya, Logan’s Run, Beyond Westworld, Search, The Lieutenant, Jericho, The Jimmy Stewart Show, Lucan, and Bronk.”
• British author Colin Cotterill receives some love from the Nikkei Asian Review for his novels starring Dr. Siri Paiboun, the crime-solving state coroner at the morgue in Laos’ capital, Vientiane. “Cotterill can boast of being the only Western author of a murder-mystery series set in Laos,” declares the publication, “although the expat-penned detective genre abounds in Thailand.”
• Congratulations to all of the authors—Patricia Abbott, Craig Pittman, J.D. Allen, Hilary Davidson, and Alex Seguara among them—whose work has been selected to appear in the 2018 Bouchercon anthology, awaiting publication later this year.
• The 2002 film Road to Perdition, based on Max Allan Collins’ 1998 graphic novel of the same name, has found a place on Taste of Cinema’s list of “The 10 Most Stylish Movies of the 21st Century.”
• While we’re on the subject of lists, take a look at Craig Sisterson’s choices of a dozen New Zealand crime writers “whose books will give you an insight into this faraway place and its people.” And yes, Paul Thomas and Vanda Symon are both included.
• Calling Fox News a “propaganda machine for a destructive and ethically ruinous administration,” retired U.S. Army Lieutenant Colonel Ralph Peters, a frequent Fox contributor, has chosen not to renew his contract with that network. According to the Web site BuzzFeed, Peters sent a message to colleagues saying, “Fox News is assaulting our constitutional order and the rule of law, while fostering corrosive and unjustified paranoia among viewers.” This wouldn’t usually have been fodder for a Rap Sheet item; however, you may recall that Peters, under the pseudonym Owen Parry, penned half a dozen mystery novels set during America’s Civil War and starring a detective named Abel Jones. (The first book in that series was 1999’s Faded Coat of Blue.) It’s good to see that Peters has been keeping himself busy since he stopped writing the Jones books in 2005.
Virginia blogger-author B.V. Lawson keeps much better track of Hollywood deals and doings than I do. Which makes her weekly “Media Murder for Monday” posts among the most interesting elements of her blog, In Reference to Murder. Today, for instance, Lawson offers two tidbits of particular interest. First, this one:
Jay Hernandez (Scandal) has been tapped to play Thomas Magnum, the lead in CBS’ drama reboot pilot Magnum P.I. CBS had been looking to add a twist to the classic character played by Tom Selleck in the original series, which had been conceived as diverse in the reboot, with the network setting out to find a non-white actor for the role.
The reboot follows Thomas Magnum (Hernandez), a decorated ex-Navy SEAL who, upon returning home from Afghanistan, repurposes his military skills to become a private investigator. With help from fellow vets Theodore “TC” Calvin and Orville “Rick” Wright, as well as that of disavowed former MI:6 agent Juliet Higgins, Magnum takes on the cases no one else will, helping those who have no one else to turn to.
Sense8 alum Brian J. Smith has been cast as the lead in CBS’ drama pilot L.A. Confidential ... Directed by Michael Dinner, the TV series follows three homicide detectives, a female reporter and a Hollywood actress whose paths intersect as the detectives pursue a serial killer ... [in] gritty and glamorous 1950s Los Angeles. Smith is set to play Detective Ed Exley, the lead role played by Guy Pearce in 1997 that earned a Best Picture Oscar nomination. Cold, but not without a conscience, brilliant, fiercely ambitious, Ed Exley is an L.A. cop when the pilot story begins. Determined to make his mark and become a hero in his father’s eyes, Ed will do anything to prove himself.
Smith joins Justified’s Walton Goggins, who was recently cast as Detective Jack Vincennes.
If Lawson’s In Reference to Murder isn’t already on your list of blogs to check frequently, it really ought to be.
I’m overdue to compile one of my mammoth “Bullet Points” posts, but that will have to wait until I have more free time. For now, here’s a smattering of crime-fiction links worth your attention.
• With the brand-new fourth season of Bosch set to debut on the Amazon TV streaming service come Friday, April 13, Criminal Element is asking all readers to vote for their favorite novel in Michael Connelly’s long-running Harry Bosch series.
• Have you been watching TNT-TV’sThe Alienist, based on Caleb Carr’s 1994 historical thriller of that same name? If so, you will probably be interested in The Bowery Boys’ photograph-filled look back at what New York City was really like in 1896.
• I reported last September on plans to create a TV series inspired by James Ellroy’s 1990 crime novel, L.A. Confidential, and the 1997 film already produced from Ellroy’s tale. Now, Deadline Hollywood brings word that the producers of that prospective CBS drama have recruited Walton Goggins (late of Justified and Vice Principals) to fill a lead role. “Goggins will play one of [three principal homicide] detectives, Jack Vincennes,” according to Deadline. “All swagger and flash with a movie-star smile, Jack knows how the system works and uses it to his best advantage, including some corrupt
shakedowns on the side. The role was played by Kevin Spacey in the movie that premiered at the 1997 Cannes Film Festival and went to on score nine Oscar nominations, including Best Picture, and two wins.”
• Also from Deadline Hollywood comes news that “Mel Gibson, Oscar-winning screenwriter Robert Towne, and Mike Medavoy are teaming on Dancing Bear, an adaptation of the hard-boiled crime novel by the late James Crumley that is in the early stages at USA Network though Universal Cable Productions.” The site explains that “Crumley’s novel is set in Montana
and centers on part-time detective Milo Milodragovitch, who becomes entangled with a cast of unsavory
characters in a web of criminal conspiracies, blackmail, land grabs, grizzly bears, guns, and drugs. Said Gibson, ‘It’s basically Chinatown set in a 7-11 in Montana in the ’70s with a whole lot of cocaine.’” Now, I have great respect for Towne, and I remember enjoying Crumley’s Dancing Bear, though it’s been years since I read that book. But the involvement in this project of Gibson—whose anti-Semitic and homophobic views have been well documented—leaves me unsettled. I know it’s probably healthy for people to separate the obnoxious behavior of some Hollywood celebs from their artistic contributions, and respect them for the latter. Gibson’s ugly side, though, is so very pronounced, I don’t know if I can do that—as much as I might like to see gumshoe Milodragovitch brought to small-screen life.
• Since I just wrote about the 50th anniversary of Peter Falk’s first televised appearance as Lieutenant Columbo, my attention was easily caught by this
item about a brand-new cookbook titled Cooking with Columbo: Suppers with the Shambling Sleuth. The Columbophile explains that it was penned by “London-based Columbo super-fan Jenny Hammerton,” host of the Silver Screen Suppers blog, who “plundered her extensive archives of more than 7,000 movie star recipes to come
up with meal suggestions to match every Columbo episode! Featuring favorite recipes from the likes of Peter Falk, Vincent Price, Johnny Cash, Robert Conrad, Trish Van Devere, Dick Van Dyke, and Janet Leigh, there’s inspiration enough to create sensational dinners for one right through to opulent banquets and house parties—including enough chili variations to keep purists happy (although no squirrel chili recipe makes the cut).” It was established early in Columbo’s run that the Los Angeles cop was a chili lover.
• In the wake of last Wednesday’smass shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida—during which 17 people were killed and others injured, allegedly by a crazed teenage gunman wielding an AR-15-style semi-automatic rifle—more than one person has brought up the concern that a generation of America’s youth will now associate the name “Marjory Stoneman Douglas” with
senseless brutality … instead of with the pioneering environmentalist, journalist, and Presidential Medal of Freedom winner who gave her name to that school. Oh yes,
and the original Marjory Stoneman Douglas (1890-1998) also happened to be an early contributor to Black Mask magazine. Among Douglas’ papers, currently archived at the University of Miami, is a 1924 Black Mask yarn titled “White Midnight,” which has been described as “a novella about sunken treasures in the West Indies.”
• Speaking of that Florida student massacre, A. Brad Schwartz—the co-author, with Max Allan Collins, of a forthcoming non-fiction book titled Scarface and the Untouchable: Al Capone, Eliot Ness, and the Battle for Chicago (Morrow)—points out in this New York Times op-ed piece, that it took place exactly 89 years after the Windy City’s notorious St. Valentine’s Day Massacre. Schwartz adds that said butchery, which claimed just seven victims, led to profound changes both in Chicago’s political foundations and in the nation’s response to increasing gun violence of the time. “We should be ashamed,” he concludes, “that the killing of criminals 90 years ago could help spur such change, while the repeated slaughter of children prompts little more than ‘thoughts and prayers’ from lawmakers today. The story of the St. Valentine’s Day Massacre shows how public outrage can create meaningful reform when the political and economic costs of inaction outweigh the inertia preserving the status quo.”
• As mentioned previously, funeral services for the late mystery novelist Bill Crider took place this last Monday afternoon in his hometown of Alvin, Texas. I haven’t heard a great deal about the event, but one attendee did recall, on Facebook, that it was a “lovely memorial service …, complete with mentions by each speaker of those precious not-so-little-anymore VBKs” (aka Crider’s three Very Bad Kittens, who now have their very own Facebook fan page).
• Meanwhile, Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine editor Janet Hutchings wrote a very nice remembrance of Bill Crider in her blog. And Robert S. Napier, a longtime friend of Crider’s, shares in his own blog the contents of the final e-mail message he received from that 76-year-old Lone Star State author, which contained this lament:
I can’t believe what’s happened to this country, which was the greatest in the world at one time. I don’t think that’s true now, and I really resent it that I’m going to die in a country that’s going downhill so fast. I don’t know how many years I have left, but even it’s ten or fifteen, I can’t see us recovering. I try not to think too much about it for fear of falling into despair.
• OK, you can consider me jealous: On behalf of New York magazine’s pop-culture Web site, Vulture, Sarah Weinman recently interviewed playwright-author David Mamet, whose fourth novel, the 1920s-set crime story
Chicago, is due out next week from Custom House. During their exchange, Mamet more or less characterizes his drive as an artist this way: “I’m basically nuts. I sit by myself every day, most days, eight hours in this little room. It feels like either a torment or an adventure. The
only way I can still the torment or appreciate the adventure is to write it down.”
• Finally, The Secret Agent Lair reviews M, Dynamite Entertainment’s latest James Bond comic-book spin-off, this one starring 007’s superior and the head of Britain’s Secret Intelligence Service (aka MI6). “M is very much a decent spy thriller that does not involve nor even feature the character of James Bond, anywhere,” the blog opines. “Starring in a title of his own, M proves that he is a very worthy spymaster who can think on his feet and outsmart the opponent
using the skills of a master strategist he acquired over the years, isn’t afraid to apply his use of variable types of combat on his enemies, and holds [up] his own rather well without the need of any agent or a bodyguard in his disposal, which is why it makes the character worthy of the spin-off he was given.” The Secret Agent Lair goes on to say that “M is supposed to be collected in a [hardcover volume] of one-shots entitled James Bond: Case Files Vol. 1, which also includes Moneypenny as well as titles starring Bond: Service and Solstice.” That omnibus is due out in mid-July.
Please forgive the recent paucity of fresh posts on this page, but I’ve been busy finishing up a couple of large projects over the last two weeks, one of which I was particularly pleased to have tackled. (More about that soon.) Having now put both of those endeavors behind me, I can return to my collection of crime fiction-related links around the Web. Here are a few of the things I’ve turned up lately.
• The site ComingSoon.net reports that Willem Dafoe has been tapped to co-star, opposite Edward Norton, in Motherless Brooklyn, a forthcoming big-screen adaptation of Jonathan Lethem’s 1999 novel of that same name. Norton has apparently written the script already, and will be one of the picture’s producers. For anyone who hasn’t read Lethem’s Brooklyn-set yarn, here’s Wikipedia’s plot synopsis: “Lethem’s protagonist, Lionel Essrog, has Tourette syndrome, a
disorder marked by involuntary tics. Essrog works, along with Tony, Danny and Gilbert, who call themselves the Minna Men, for Frank Minna—a small-time
neighborhood owner of a ‘seedy and makeshift’ detective agency—who is stabbed to death.” Motherless Brooklyn won both the 1999 National Book Critics Circle Award for fiction and the 2000 Gold Dagger from the British Crime Writers’ Association.
• Series 5 of Endeavour began showing last weekend in Great Britain. In the first of six new episodes (two more than previous seasons offered), “It’s 1st April 1968, and Morse [played by Shaun Evans] is now a Detective Sergeant and lodging with [DS Jim] Strange [Sean Rigby], though his position in the reorganised nick is hardly secure,” explains the UK TV blog Killing Times. “He’s investigating a handbag snatching, but there’s more skullduggery going on, including the auction of a Faberge egg, that old cliché of caper movies, and a shooting in a taxi. … Joan Thursday (Sarah Vickers) is back in town, her dalliance in exotic Leamington evidently having come to a sticky end, but there seems no prospect of her resuming any relationship with Morse, or indeed her dad, Fred [Roger Allam].” The blog Morse, Lewis, and Endeavour provides further hints at what to expect from this excellent program in the weeks to come, and in a separate post, says that Endeavour showrunner Russell Lewis is planning some sort of on-screen tribute to Colin Dexter, who created Inspector Morse and passed away last year. Watch the Season 5 video trailer below.
• I have not so far come across any reliable news as to when Endeavour Series 5 will reach American television screens, but if history can be our guide, it should begin broadcasting as part of PBS-TV’s Masterpiece Mystery! lineup in late summer of this year.
• In the wake of sexual-misconduct allegations leveled against Kevin Spacey, who played its pitiless central character, politician Frank Underwood, the Netflix drama series House of Cardshas
made some casting changes. According to The New York Times, Spacey is out, while Diane Lane and Greg Kinnear will join returning star Robin Wright for the show’s sixth and final season. Shooting of House of Cards’ concluding episodes commenced in late January.
More than a decade after the release of the feature film adaptation of Dennis Lehane’s best-selling novel, Gone Baby Gone, Fox has ordered a pilot for a TV series adapting the story of working-class Boston detectives investigating a young girl’s kidnapping. Written by Black Sails creator Robert Levine, the pilot will be a one-hour drama following private detectives Patrick Kenzie and Angela Gennaro, who are “armed with their wits, their street knowledge and an undeniable chemistry” as they attempt to tackle cases that the law can’t in the working-class Boston borough of Dorchester. Levine and Lehane are both set to executive produce the pilot, which is aiming for Fox’s 2018-2019 TV season.
• The same source brings word that CBS-TV has greenlighted a small-screen version of L.A. Confidential, “a new take on the James Ellroy detective novel that inspired the Oscar-winning 1997 film.” As we reported last September, author Jordan Harper (She Rides Shotgun) will be responsible for writing the pilot’s script.
• This comes from Tor.com: “The first full-length trailer for the second season of Jessica Jones has the hard-drinking superpowered detective taking on an incredibly personal case: her own, delving into the car accident that killed her, and the shadowy people who brought her back to life. The powers, it turns out, were a side effect.” Jessica Jones will return to Netflix on Thursday, March 8.
• OK, just one more bit of movie news: Cinelou Films has grabbed up the cinematic rights to Jar of Hearts, a thriller novel set for release by Minotaur Books in June, and written by Jennifer Hillier, a quondam Seattleite now residing in Toronto, Canada. Amazon’s brief on the plot line of Hillier’s tale says, “This is [the] story of three best friends: one who was murdered, one who went to prison, and one who’s been searching for the truth all these years.” I have not yet received a copy of Hillier’s book, but it sounds promising.
• Tampa Bay Times journalist Craig Pittman, who last year wrote about Elmore Leonard’s LaBrava for The Rap Sheet, has a fun piece in Slate speculating that the parents on television’s The Brady Bunch “murdered each other’s spouses and married each other. And that’s the way they all became the Brady Bunch.”
• Editor Janet Rudolph has let it be known that the latest edition of Mystery Readers Journal—the second in a row to focus on “Big City Cops”—is now available for purchase, either in a hard-copy version or as a downloadable PDF. If you missed the previous magazine, you can order it and other back issues by clicking here.
• A belated happy birthday to Ida Lupino. As Terence Towles Canote observed in his blog, this last Sunday, Febrary 4, marked the 100th year since Lupino’s delivery in London, England. “It seems likely that most people know Ida Lupino only as a beautiful and talented actress from the Golden Age of Hollywood,” Canote writes. “Classic movie buffs know otherwise. We know that she was not only a talented actress, but a talented director as well. Over the years she directed several films and several hours worth of television. As only the second woman to join the Directors Guild of America (Dorothy Arzner was the first), Ida Lupino was a true pioneer.” She died in 1995, aged 77.
• And happy 20th anniversary to the James Bond-obsessed site MI6. Looking back over its history, the editors write: “The future of the 007 franchise was more certain 20 years ago than it [is] today, although nobody knew back then what would be in store with [Pierce] Brosnan’s unceremoniously leaving the franchise, MGM’s bankruptcy and repeated financial troubles, Daniel Craig’s controversial casting, and the ‘new normal’ of longer breaks between films. Whatever lies in store as we approach the fifth—and probably final—Daniel Craig outing, MI6 will be here to cover it.”
• The entertainment Web site WhatCulture.comlists
10 things it expects from the coming, 25th 007 flick—“essential signifiers that James Bond, in all its glory, has truly returned.”
• The Gumshoe Site reports the sad news that Kansas-born, Southern California-reared author Gaylord Dold
“died after complications from the flu and was found on January 29 at his mother’s home in Fort Scott, Kansas.” The blog goes on to explain:
The former lawyer wrote the Mitch Roberts private eye series starting with Hot Summer, Cold Murder (Avon, 1987). Modeled on Robert Mitchum, Dold’s favorite actor, Roberts gumshoes around in 1950s Wichita, Kansas, Dold’s hometown, in the first six paperback original books … then he turns international in A Penny for the Old Guy (St. Martin’s, 1991) and three following hardcover novels, sleuthing around Europe till Samedi’s Knapsack (Minotaur, 2001). He also wrote standalone crime novels (such as The Last Man in Berlin; Sourcebooks, 2003; retitled Storm 33; Kindle, 2014), a memoir (Jack’s Boy; Kindle, 2014), two travel guides ([including]The Rough Guide to the Bahamas; Rough Guides, 2007), [and] two Jack Kilgore novels ([including] The Nickel Jolt, Premier Digital, 2013; Kilgore being ex-Marine Intelligence agent). He was 70.
• In Mystery*File, Francis M. Nevins notes the passing, this last October, of Donald A. Yates, an authority on Spanish and Latin American literature (he helped, for instance, to bring the works of Argentine author Jorge Luis Borges to U.S. audiences). Yates translated crime stories for Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine and edited Latin Blood (1972), “an anthology of mystery tales from Central and South America, which includes three stories by Borges.” In addition, Yates was a Sherlock Holmes enthusiast and a fan
of locked-room mysteries, and he penned “several detective short stories” of his own over the years. He was 87 years old when he died at his home in Deer
Park, California.
• No sooner had I finally listened to all of Nancie Clare’s Speaking of Mysteries podcasts, than three new episodes appeared. Her latest author interviewees: Karen Cleveland (Need to Know), Jody Gehrman (Watch Me), and Adam Walker Phillips (The Perpetual Summer).
• Another thing I haven’t been keeping up with: Crime Friction, the rookie podcast hosted by Jay Stringer and the delightful Chantelle
Aimée Osman. Episode 4 is just out, featuring Gary Phillips talking about Culprits: The Heist Was Just the Beginning (Polis), a new serial anthology he co-edited with Richard J. Brewer.
• It’s been a while now since we had an update on Bill Crider’s health, supplied by family members through his Facebook page. As you will remember, the 76-year-old Alvin, Texas, author-blogger, suffering from prostate cancer, is undergoing hospice care. The last I remember reading, Bill was weak but resting
peacefully. Meanwhile, his three beloved cats—rescued from a drainage ditch near his home in 2016, and known ever since as the VBKs (Very Bad Kittens)—have gone to live with his goddaughter, Liz Romig Hatlestad, at her home in the central Texas town of Brownwood. They also now have their own Facebook fan page! And to commemorate Bill’s writing career, fellow blogger Evan Lewis has been posting photos of Bill and Judy Crider from their appearances at multiple Bouchercons over the years.
• Speaking of the honorable Mr. Crider, Spinetingler Magazine’s Brian Lindenmuth recently launched a new blog, Palomino Mugging, that he calls “a spiritual successor to Bill Crider’s blog, Bill Crider’s Pop Culture Magazine. Bill’s blog was like a personalized RSS feed of interesting things, interspersed with reviews and other writings. That’s the approach I plan to take.” There isn’t much new crime-fiction content on Lindenmuth’s site yet; most of the posts so far appear to have been picked up from Lindenmuth’s older Web offerings. But as a longtime reader of Crider’s blog, I look forward to seeing how successfully Lindenmuth’s efforts will measure up.
• I have often thought how wonderful it would be to spend more time in Great Britain, which seems to be regularly rife with crime-fiction events. Just look at this list, put together by the Crime Writers’ Association (CWA), of writing festivals and workshops being offered “across the pond” over the next couple of months.
• Also from the CWA comes a reminder that its annual Margery Allingham Short Story Competition is accepting submissions from both published and unpublished wordsmiths. The deadline is midnight on February 28. The CWA explains that “There’s a limit of 3,500 words and a fairly open brief—your mystery story needs to fit Margery Allingham’s definition of a mystery: ‘The Mystery remains box-shaped, at once a prison and a refuge. Its four walls are, roughly, a Crime, a Mystery, an Enquiry and a Conclusion with an Element of Satisfaction in it.’ It costs £12 to enter and the winner walks away with £500, a selection of Margery Allingham books and two passes for international crime writing convention CrimeFest in 2019.” This year’s winner will be announced during CrimeFest 2018 (May 17-20).
• An Indian media site called Scroll carries Jai Arjun Singh’s intriguing account of baffling disappearances (of people, footprints, weapons, cars, etc.) in need of investigating in classic mystery fiction.
• Prolific crime-novelist John Lutzrecalls for the SleuthSayers blog how and why he created Thomas Laker, the secret agent hero of a brand-new series being introduced this month with The Honorable Traitors (Pinnacle). Compounding my interest in that post is Jan Grape’s introduction, in which she says she first met Lutz at the Baltimore Bouchercon convention in 2008. As it happens, that was also the only time I remember encountering the author. It was during a late evening, and I’d gone down to the convention hotel bar for a nightcap and some conversation. After receiving my drink, I looked across the well-lit, too-shiny room and saw Lutz and his wife, Barbara, seated at a small round table in the far corner. They were chatting amiably, not inviting company. But, being fairly new to the conventioneering game and—after years spent as a reporter—comfortable with approaching strangers (even famous ones), I sidled over to their table, apologized for the interruption, and then went into an overlong appreciation of Lutz’s Fred Carver private-eye series. The author seemed very humble in the face of my adulation, but let a small smile ride his lips the whole time. After I was done prattling, he thanked me for reading his novels, and I retreated to my own table. The Lutzes left soon afterward. In retrospect, it was a small moment, but it reminded me of how much I appreciated Lutz’s work. Within the next six months, I had re-read most of the Carver yarns. It just goes to show what impact meeting an author can have on a true fan.
• For the ninth year in a row, government information librarian/author Robert Lopresti has chosen his favorite crime-fiction short stories of the year, this time for 2017. “The big winners,” Lopresti explains, “were Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine and Alfred Hitchcock Mystery Magazine, tied with five stories each. Akashic Press and Mystery Weekly Magazine each scored two. … Six of the stories are funny (says me); four have fantasy elements. Only one is a historical. I think one could be described as fair play.” You will find his 18 top choices in the blog SleuthSayers.
• Late last month brought word that author and screenwriter Bridget Lawless was launching the Staunch Book Prize, to be given to the best thriller novel “in which no
woman is beaten, stalked, sexually exploited, raped, or murdered.” She explains on her competition’s Web site that “As violence against women in fiction reaches a ridiculous high, the Staunch Book Prize invites thriller writers to keep us on the edge of our seats without resorting to the same old clichés—particularly female characters who are sexually assaulted (however ‘necessary to the plot’), or done away with (however ingeniously).” Lawless’ contest, which offers £2,000 in prize money, will be open to “stories across the thriller genre—crime, psychological, comedy, and mysteries—and to traditionally published, self-published, and not-yet-published works.” Submissions will be accepted from February 22 through July 15, with an announcement of the winning entry scheduled for November 25, “coinciding with the International Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women.” While many readers have cheered Lawless’ move, there have been objections—including from Britain’s Sophie Hannah, who wrote in The Guardian:
The prize clearly has good intentions, and wishes to take an important stand against violence towards women. The problem is that it’s not
the violence that’s on the receiving end of that stand; it’s writers and readers.
Brutality is not the same thing as writing about brutality. After suffering a trauma, some people find it consoling and empowering to read, or write, about fictional characters who have survived similar experiences. If we can’t stop human beings from viciously harming one another, we need to be able to write stories in which that harm is subjected to psychological and moral scrutiny, and punished. On some occasions, perhaps the fictional perpetrator will go unpunished, if the author is writing about the failure of the legal system to deliver justice. There is no life-changing experience that we should be discouraged from writing and reading about.
The Staunch prize could instead have been created to honour the novel that most powerfully or sensitively tackles the problem of violence against women and girls. Reading the eligibility criteria, it’s hard to avoid the conclusion that the prize actively sets out to discourage crime fiction, even of the highest quality, that tackles violence against women head-on.
• Nominees for this year’s RT Reviewers’ Choice Awards have been proclaimed in a range of categories. Click here to see the mystery fiction and romantic suspense works vying for honors. Winners will be named during a May 27 ceremony in Reno, Nevada.
• It’s time to suit up again for SleuthFest, which is set to be held in Boca Raton, Florida, from March 1 to 4. Mystery Fanfare shares the details on special guests, registration, and more.
• I, for one, have never seen “The Deep End,” a 1964 episode of Kraft Suspense Theatre that Elizabeth Foxwell features in The Bunburyist. She says the show, which finds Clu Gulager starring in a private dick role, was “likely” adapted from John D. MacDonald’s 1963 standalone novel, The Drowner.
• George C. Chesbro devotees, please take note. A decade after his
death in 2008, Open Road Media has made available e-book versions of 23 of that author’s mystery and private-eye novels. They include most of his books headlined by dwarf criminologist/gumshoe Robert Frederickson, aka “Mongo the Magnificent.”
• Congratulations are owed to a couple of new columnists at different publications: Craig Sisterson, who has launchedCrimespree Magazine’s
new “Māwake Crime Review,” “featuring some great crime writers and crime novels from beyond the borders of North America and
Europe”; and Dean Jobb, the author of Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine’s new “Stranger Than Fiction” column, about true-crime books.
• The aforementioned Mr. Sisterson has also created a Facebook page for Rotorua Noir, which he says is “New Zealand’s first-ever crime-writing festival,” and is set to take place in the North Island city of Rotorua from January 27 to 27, 2019. “We have already secured a great venue, and four amazing international Guests of Honour, who will be joining an array of crime writers on a terrific programme of writer workshops, author panels, and other cool events.”
• Although this
critique of Sarah Trott’s non-fiction work, War Noir: Raymond Chandler and the Hard-Boiled Detective as Veteran in American Fiction (University Press of Mississippi), could have benefited from more careful proofreading, it leads me to believe I would enjoy the book. Trott’s thesis is that Chandler’s service with the Canadian Expeditionary Force during World War I influenced “his prose style and can chiefly be identified in his most famous character, private investigator [Philip] Marlowe; namely in the way he thinks, talks and acts.” It’s just a shame Trott’s volume is so expensive, $65, making most readers think twice before purchasing.
• We are still a week away from Valentine’s Day, but Mystery Fanfare has reposted its extensive list of Valentine’s Day mysteries, only a handful of which I can honestly claim to have read.
• And here’s a series I never thought I would see again: The Lazarus Man, a
1996 TNT-TV Western/mystery that starred Robert Urich (Spenser: For Hire) as an amnesiac who escaped a premature grave in Texas in the mid-1860s, then wandered about the West trying to figure out who he was and why he was plagued by recollections of being attacked by a man in a derby hat. The show was actually renewed for a second season, but was subsequently cancelled after news broke that Urich had been diagnosed with the rare cancer synovial cell sarcoma. (He would die in 2002.) Twenty episodes were shown, but two never unaired. Now, the Web site TV Shows on DVD informs me that The Lazarus Man—The Complete Series will be released on February 13 by the Warner Archive Collection. That site says the DVD set will comprise five discs, but is vague on whether it will contain those never-broadcast last two eps. The Turner Classic Movies site, though, says all 22 episodes will be included in the set. Amazon lists the retail price of The Lazarus Man—The Complete Series as $47.99.
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In the Beginning ...
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In the essay below, Powell delivers brief background on his experiences in preparing Love Me Fierce in Danger, which critic-author Barry Forshaw calls “an essential purchase for anyone interested in modern American crime fiction, couched in prose that is as lively as its uncompromising subject.”)
(Above) Scholar and biographer Steven Powell.
