Tidbits Both Meaty and Minor

• As CrimeReads’ Dwyer Murphy notes, there have been “hundreds of editions” of Raymond Chandler’s The Long Goodbye produced since that novel first appeared in 1953. “Some are beautiful, some bizarre; often they’re both,” he writes. Click here to see what Murphy says are “47 of the best covers of The Long Goodbye from around the world. They’re organized by language (almost certainly some are placed in the wrong section—my apologies), and chit-chat has been favored over rigorous analysis of aesthetics. Better, I think, to embrace the chaos. This is, after all, The Long Goodbye.” By the way, Murphy says, “My own personal favorite from the English language paperbacks is the 1962 Pocket edition, with cover art by the great Harry Bennett.”

• I was not previously familiar with arts supporter Deen Kogan, who passed away on March 28 at age 87, but Janet Rudolph’s obituary of her in Mystery Fanfare provides a bit of background:

She and her husband, Jay Kogan, founded Society Hill Playhouse, a staple of Philadelphia theatre for over 60 years. The theatre’s mission was to serve the community, and over the years it did just that with the first integrated cast in Philadelphia in the ’60s, a summer theatre ‘camp’ for kids, and free tickets to Philadelphia high school classes. She was a theatre legend.

In terms of mystery, Dean Kogan put on several mystery conventions, including Bouchercon in Philadelphia in 1998 and in Las Vegas in 2003 and stepped in to co-chair the Chicago [Bouchercon] in 2005 when Hal Rice passed away. … She also put on a Mid-Atlantic Mystery convention in Philadelphia for several years. More recently she was active in the organizing of NoirCon, also held in Philadelphia. She served for many years as a reader for the International Association of Crime Writers’ Hammett Awards.

The Gumshoe Site adds that Kogan died “at her home in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, while recovering from a recent back injury.”

• Also in Mystery Fanfare: Dozens of crime and mystery novels that would be appropriate to tackle this coming Easter weekend.

• British books critic Barry Forshaw—author of the new-in-the-UK work Historical Noir (Pocket Essentials)—selects “10 of the best historical crime novels” for Crime Fiction Lover. His choices, arranged by era, include Umberto Eco’s The Name of the Rose (representing the Middle Ages), Antonia Hodgson’s The Devil in the Marshalsea (the 18th century), Philip Kerr’s A Man Without Breath (World War II), and David Peace’s The Red Riding Quartet (the 1970s).

• Are you feeling at something of a loss now that TNT-TV’s The Alienist has ended? For more murder and mystery in the New York City of old, turn to The Bowery Boys. That history blog has gathered together five of its foremost podcasts having to do with real-life crime of the 19th and early 20th centuries, stories ranging from journalist Nellie Bly’s infiltration of an insane asylum to the never-solved disappearance of wealthy young socialite Dorothy Arnold.

• Meanwhile, Simon Baatz—an associate professor of history at Manhattan’s John Jay College and the author of The Girl on the Velvet Swing: Sex, Murder, and Madness at the Dawn of the Twentieth Century (Mulholland)—picks works by seven authors that illuminate New York during the Gilded Age and Progressive Era. Click here.

• In Reference to Murder brings this news:

Former Major Crimes star Kearran Giovanni has landed a lead role opposite Derek Luke, Jeri Ryan, and Paula Newsome in NBC’s drama pilot, Suspicion.

Based on the book by Joseph Finder and directed by Brad Anderson, Suspicion is described as a Hitchcockian thriller about how far one man will go to save the people he loves. After Danny Goldman (Luke) accepts a handshake loan from his new friend and millionaire neighbor, he gets a visit from the FBI and learns that the decision is one he will regret for the rest of his life. Coerced to work as an informant for the FBI to earn back his freedom, Danny is forced to infiltrate a world of violence and corruption while trying to protect his family. Giovanni will play Lucy Fletcher, a psychotherapist.

• Also worth investigating: Kate Jackson names more than a dozen of her favorite country house mysteries in Cross-Examining Crime.

• Finally, did you know that Steve Hockensmith was working on a new “Holmes on the Range” mystery starring cowpokes-turned-gumshoes Big Red and Old Red Amlingmeyer? Yeah, neither did I. But his Web site says he’s completed more than half of a sixth novel in that series, to be titled The Double-A Western Detective Agency. I look forward to reading the finished product sometime soon.

The Grand Tour

• Albuquerque, New Mexico, journalist-cum-novelist Christine Barber has won the first Tony Hillerman Prize for her book, The Replacement Child. The announcement was made during the fifth annual Tony Hillerman Writers Conference: Focus on Mystery being held in Albuquerque. The Hillerman Prize is sponsored by both the conference and St. Martin’s Press, and is given to what judges consider the best unpublished novel by a first-time author. According to a press release, The Replacement Child “is set in Santa Fe, New Mexico, and draws upon Barber’s experiences working for local newspapers and as a volunteer EMT/firefighter with Santa Fe County. Barber was an editor at the Santa Fe New Mexican for ten years and has also worked for the Albuquerque Journal and the Gallup Independent.” Her award-winning novel will be published by Thomas Dunne Books/ St. Martin’s Minotaur next fall.

The deadline for next year’s Hillerman Prize competition will be July 1, 2008. To find entry guidelines, click here or here.

• British author Frank Tallis’ “Lieberman Papers” historical mystery series--the third and latest installment of which is Fatal Lies, due out in early January from Century--is set to be adapted for television by the BBC in 2009. I enjoyed the initial two installments of Tallis’ series, Mortal Mischief (U.S. title: A Death in Vienna) and Vienna Blood, both of which starred Freud acolyte Dr. Max Liebermann and his friend and investigative cohort, Detective Inspector Oskar Rheinhardt. Set in Vienna, Austria, during the first decade of the 20th century, these books certainly have the narrative strengths and intriguing characters appropriate for a TV serial. By the way, one other thing I learned about Tallis’ series (from London’s Goldboro Books site) is that it’s planned to run six books long. So it will be entertaining us for some while to come.

• While we’re talking about turning novels into visual entertainments, I just learned from book critic Clayton Moore’s Bang! blog that Hollywood has been planning for some time to produce a film based on George C. Chesbro’s 1979 novel, An Affair of Sorcerers, the third installment of his series featuring circus performer-turned-criminologist Dr. Robert Frederickson, aka “Mongo the Magnificent.” Many younger readers have probably never heard of Mongo; yet as Moore recalled in a Bookslut piece a couple of years back, he may be “the shortest, baddest, ass-kicking crime fighter that ever stalked the hard-boiled streets.” Moore went on to explain:

Starting with mystery magazines, Chesbro created a unique witches’ brew of noir brutality, occult tension, detective science and bizarre villains. Playboy once described it as Raymond Chandler meets Stephen King but it was often more like James Bond on acid. Mongo had the skills, the international intrigue and the strange appeal of a man forced to make his way in a world of giants. Through fourteen novels, Mongo fought monsters, warlocks and scientists. He battled Iranian secret police. He infiltrated an isolated biosphere. He fought ninjas.

In 1996, Simon & Schuster quietly published Dream of a Falling Eagle, the last Mongo adventure to see mainstream print. Mongo disappeared.

Well, for the most part. But it turns out that Chesbro secured rights to all of his novels, and has since formed a small publishing company to keep them in print. That his determination will be rewarded with a film (reportedly due out in 2008) starring Peter Dinklage is quite extraordinary. I had the chance many years ago to visit Chesbro at his home outside of New York City. He struck me as a kind gentleman, very astute and with a real devotion to the crime-fiction field. I had no idea that he had the cojones to defy publishing disregard--and win in the end. Good for him.

• And did I mention before that the Jill Hennessy TV series Crossing Jordan, sadly cancelled by NBC earlier this year, is finally coming to DVD? Well, Jordan’s first season is, anyway, according to TV Shows on DVD. It’s due out in February 2008.

• When last we heard from California author Steve Hockensmith, he was worrying--perhaps more than was absolutely necessary--over the future of his Amlingmeyer brothers historical mystery series. Now, in a more optimistic vein, he muses at My Book, the Movie on the potential casting for a film based on his winning first novel, Holmes on the Range (2006). I won’t tell you who he’s picked for the roles; you’ll have to click over here to find out. But I will say that they actors are not hard to imagine playing “Old Red” and “Big Red.” Hollywood, take note.

• In Reference to Murder’s B.V. Lawson brings news that Karen Kissane, “a journalist for 28 years and law and justice editor of The [Melbourne] Age,” has won this year’s Davitt Award in the Best True Crime category for her book Silent Death: The Killing of Julie Ramage. Meanwhile, Kerry Greenwood’s novel Devil’s Food won the Readers’ Choice award. The Davitts--named in honor of Ellen Davitt (1812-1879), the first known Australian mystery novelist--are given out annually by the Australian division of Sisters in Crime. You can look here for more details.

• Finally, author Wallace Stroby continues adding to his selections of unjustly overlooked crime novels (a splendid spinoff from The Rap Sheet’s “one book project”). His last nominee is Martin Quinn (2003), by Anthony Lee. “The book’s New York atmosphere,” Stroby writes, “was so strong you could just about smell it, and as unlikable--and unredeemable--as most of the characters were, the writing put you right into their hearts and minds. It made me jealous.” Read more here.

Black and White and Reds All Over

Thank goodness Cameron Hughes has interviewed Northern California novelist Steve Hockensmith for CHUD.com. I didn’t know, until reading their exchange, that Hockensmith’s delightful western historical series starring the Amlingmeyer brothers, Gustav “Old Red” and Otto “Big Red,” might be bound for Boot Hill. But there’s the warning, right out front in Hughes’ introduction: “[Hockensmith’s] books don’t sell as well as he and his publisher want and the future of the books is uncertain.” That’s unfortunate, for I agree with Hughes’ assessment that “His books are funny, original, and rather than plots driving the characters, the characters drive the plot. They paint a great picture of the old American West and manage not to romanticize it while not making it overly dour either.” You get a feel for that, as Hockensmith answers questions concerning his genre labeling (“I don’t write Westerns!”), the interest in Sherlock Holmes that he shares with the Amlingmeyers, his attraction to Pinkerton detectives (one of whom makes an appearance in this year’s On the Wrong Track), and his masochistic fondness for research.

The whole interview can be found here.