Here Comes the “Bride”

Courtesy of The Gumshoe Site comes word that Norwegian author Karin Fossum has snagged this year’s Los Angeles Times Book Prize in the highly competitive Mystery/Thriller category for her 2007 novel, The Indian Bride (Harcourt; translated by Charlotte Barslund). Winners in nine awards categories were announced yesterday, during the Los Angeles Times Festival of Books.

Also nominated in the Mystery/Thriller category this year: Christine Falls, by Benjamin Black (Henry Holt); Frozen Tracks, by Åke Edwardson (Viking); In the Woods, by Tana French (Viking); and Ice Moon, by Jan Costin Wagner (Harcourt).

For a listing of the winners in all categories, click here.

READ MORE: “Greetings from the UCLA Lawn,” by Sarah Weinman (Confessions of an Idiosyncratic Mind); “Festival of Books 2008--Saturday,” by Jeri Westerson (Getting Medieval); “L.A. Times Festival of Books--Sunday,” by Jeri Westerson (Getting Medieval); “... And That’s a Wrap,” by Sarah Weinman (Confessions of an Idiosyncratic Mind); “Festival Report: Hot Books and Free Squid,” by Christa Faust (Deadlier Than the Male).

A Little Light Housekeeping

When The Rap Sheet was launched almost two years ago, it boasted several dozen links in its “blogroll,” sites that we found valuable and creative. Since then, we’ve added many more crime-fiction-related links to this page’s right-hand column. If you were to go to the trouble of counting them all now, you’d find a whopping 593.

We have been thinking for a while that such a number of Web-browsing options requires better organization than we’ve given them in the past. So we have reorganized The Rap Sheet’s blogroll, breaking the “General” category into three parts:

• Those sites/blogs that change most frequently, and to which we most often refer during the week, can still to be found under the “General” heading.

• Print magazine-associated sites and Webzines that update on a monthly basis (or even less frequently than that) are now featured under the “Periodicals” heading.

• And valuable (but largely fixed) online resources for people interested in learning more about crime, mystery, and thriller fiction are now categorized under “About the Genre.”

We’ve also added a short list of “Online Discussion Groups,” and have moved the “Flash Fiction” section directly beneath “Periodicals.” In addition, several new blogs have been tossed into the mix: I Read, Therefore I Am; Nearly Nothing But Novels; Nobody Move!; Patti Abbott’s interesting Pattinase blog (which we’d somehow neglected to include before); and The Lineup, associated with an upcoming chapbook of crime-related poetry of that same name. Other categories remain the same as before.

In the course of rejiggering these links, we couldn’t help but notice that several sites/blogs seem to be falling behind, their authors having failed to put up anything new within recent weeks--which is too bad, since we like them all: Bang!, Bookflings, Jim Huang’s Blog, Main Title Heaven (Lee Goldberg’s fascinating site featuring a growing collection of old TV title sequences), NoirBlog, and Vintage Hardboiled Reads (August West’s blog about classic crime novels, which after a rousing start, has suddenly fallen into stasis). We’ve got our fingers crossed for new content soon.

Let us know if you have any comments on this page’s reorganization.

Deals and Debuts

• It looks as though Duane Swierczynski wasn’t pulling our legs after all. The Los Angeles Times reports today that captivating actress Michelle Monaghan, who recently appeared (if not often enough) in Gone Baby Gone and fills out a merry widow like nobody else in the new movie Made of Honor, has optioned the film rights to Swierczynski’s 2006 novel, The Blonde. It’s exactly the casting arrangement Swierczynski had in mind. Good for him.

• In a lead-in to this weekend’s Los Angeles Times Festival of Books, L.A. author-journalist Denise Hamilton talks briefly (and I mean, briefly) about her upcoming historical standalone novel, The Last Embrace. It’s a subject she addressed at greater length in The Rap Sheet some while back.

• More than a year has passed now since we mentioned that Mary McCormack--who previously turned our heads with her appearances on Murder One and The West Wing--was working on a new USA Network series, in which she’d play “a U.S. Marshall for the Federal Witness Protection Program [who] must balance her work life with a dysfunctional family.” It seems that series, which was going to be called Mary Sunshine, has now reverted back to its original title, In Plain Sight, and is being readied for an earlier-than-expected premiere on June 1. I haven’t always been a fan of USA’s comedy-drama crime series, but In Plain Sight looks promising, if only because of the participation of McCormack and Lesley Ann Warren, who will play her “vexing mother” on the show.

• Irish writer Declan Burke is all excited about the coming American release of his novel The Big O, one of January Magazine’s favorite books of 2007. And he should be excited. It’s got a bang up cover, that’s for sure.

• Oh, and happy birthday to Sue Grafton (T Is for Trespass), who turns 68 years old today.

You May Now Applaud

The longlist of 20 nominees has been announced for the 2008 Theakstons Old Peculier Crime Novel of the Year Award. It’s a pretty strong selection, and quite diverse--a good introduction, really, to the contemporary state of British crime fiction.

• The Chemistry of Death, by Simon Beckett (Bantam)
• Buried, by Mark Billingham (Sphere)
• Christine Falls, by Benjamin Black (Picador)
• A Tale Etched in Blood and Hard Black Pencil, by Christopher Brookmyre (Abacus)
• Hurting Distance, by Sophie Hannah (Hodder & Stoughton)
• Darkness and Light, by John Harvey (Arrow Books)
• The Death of Dalziel, by Reginald Hill (Harper)
• The Risk of Darkness, by Susan Hill (Vintage)
• One Under, by Graham Hurley (Orion)
• Not Dead Enough, by Peter James (Macmillan)
• Relentless, by Simon Kernick (Corgi Books)
• Corn Dolls, by Patrick Lennon (Hodder)
• Dying Light, by Stuart MacBride (HarperCollins)
• Blue Shoes and Happiness, by Alexander McCall Smith (Abacus)
• The Grave Tattoo, by Val McDermid (HarperCollins)
• The Savage Garden, by Mark Mills (Harper)
• The Tenderness of Wolves, by Stef Penney (Quercus)
• Piece of My Heart, by Peter Robinson (Hodder)
• Sovereign, by C.J. Sansom (Pan)
• Shifting Skin, by Chris Simms (Orion)

A shortlist will be determined by votes from the reading public. Go here to choose your favorite book from among this bunch. The winner of the 2008 Theakstons Old Peculier Crime Novel of the Year will be announced during a ceremony on the opening night of the Harrogate Crime Writing Festival, to be held in Harrogate, England, on Thursday, July 17.

And for My Next Act ...

My brief appearance last week as a guest on the KSAV “global radio” series Talking Television with Dave White, during which I had the chance to yap some about Bill Bixby’s 1973-1974 NBC-TV series, The Magician, left me thinking about another show that combined crime and larceny with legerdemain: Blacke’s Magic.

Featuring former Barney Miller star Hal Linden as Alexander Blacke, a full-time magician and part-time sleuth, and the ever-wonderful Harry Morgan (Dragnet, Hec Ramsey, M*A*S*H) as his not-quite-reformed con man father, Leonard, that 12-episode NBC series from 1986 was created by William Link and Richard Levinson of Columbo and Mannix fame. As Wikipedia explains, the cases facing the Blackes usually “tested logic against seemingly magical crimes,” and were done with an edge of wry humor. Unfortunately, the series vanished faster than you can say “abracadabra.”

Blacke’s Magic owed its inspiration in large part to Bixby’s The Magician, even if no public acknowledgment was ever made. (Regarding its concentration on “impossible crimes,” Blacke’s Magic may also owe a debt to George Peppard’s Banacek.) In both the Bixby and Linden series, the idea of a working illusionist tackling crimes with as much dexterity as he brings to pulling flapping doves from his sleeves or breaking out of locked cabinets was the same, and it remains a promising one.

Here’s the opening to Blacke’s Magic, for anybody who doesn’t remember it. And also for those of us who do.



By the way, guest host and TV historian Ed Robertson has invited me to return to Talking Television with Dave White on the evening of Tuesday, May 20, to chat more about The Magician and its late star. How could I say no? I’ll let you know details later.

READ MORE: “NBC’s Blacke’s Magic, Magician as Detective,” by John J. O’Connor (The New York Times); “Vigil of the Shepherds,” by TomCat (Beneath the Stains of Time).

Six Shots

• After the unexpected death last month of Palm Springs author Arthur Lyons, the creator of once-noteworthy Los Angeles gumshoe Jacob Asch, I contacted his stepdaughter and wife with the intention of writing a feature-length look back at his life and work. I also decided to dig up a copy of Slow Burn, the 1986 TV movie made from Lyons’ 1979 Asch novel, Castles Burning. As I wrote before, that film starring Eric Roberts was the pilot for a prospective TV series, but it wasn’t picked up. Only recently did I receive a second-hand VHS tape copy of Slow Burn, and was preparing to watch it soon. But Steve Lewis of Mystery*File got out ahead of me. He not only has his own evaluation of that movie posted here, but has tracked down an online trailer for Slow Burn. At least initially, I have some trouble with Roberts in the Asch role (having met Lyons himself, I still imagine him playing the part), but since Lewis says he liked the teleflick “a lot,” I’ll have to give it a shot. Even if I can’t be the first to comment on it.

• Euro Crime’s Karen Meek compares the video trailer for Andrew Taylor’s forthcoming historical mystery, Bleeding Heart Square, with the Amazon synopsis for that book. You’ll find them both here.

• Shots revisits the often-overlooked work of Edgar Wallace, thriller writer. Read the essay here.

• After responding to the Page 123 meme, I’ve tried to keep track of that online chain letter’s progression. Linda L. Richards, Mark Coggins, and Danny Wagner of The Hungry Detective all responded quickly to my tagging them. I’m still waiting for Anthony Rainone and Nathan Cain of Independent Crime to answer the same call. But meanwhile, I see that Richards’ passing the baton to Marshal Zeringue at Campaign for the American Reader has produced results, and sometime January Magazine contributor Karen G. Anderson has tried her hand at this exercise, as well. Oh, and Wagner’s tagging novelist Duane Swierczynski has brought this response, plus this one from A Case of Murder blogger Jared Case. Further, Zeringue nominating author Steve Hockensmith (The Black Dove) to carry on this meme has led to this post. It’s interesting to see how quickly these things get around.

• The top 10 great scenes from movie robberies gone wrong, via Bill Crider. Included in this rundown are Reservoir Dogs, Dog Day Afternoon, Pulp Fiction, and Raising Arizona. Clearly, crime doesn’t pay enough to go through such disasters.

• And I have just four words for you: Get Smart movie wallpapers.

Feeding Frenzy

Bookgasm’s Bruce Grossman told me not long ago that the reason he’s able to log so much reading time on behalf of his weekly column, “Bullets, Broads, Blackmail & Bombs,” is because “I don’t watch TV that much, especially since I don’t have cable and [I download] anything of interest I would watch (The Wire). The only shows I really watch are Lost ..., 30 Rock, The Office, and Law & Order.”

During part of that time he’s saved, Grossman decided to overachieve in the matter of reading Warren Murphy and Richard Sapir’s long-running paperback series, The Destroyer, which features daring U.S. government operative Remo Williams. “I’ve really wanted to do an all-Remo Williams column for a long time,” Grossman explains in the introduction to his latest BBB&B column, “but felt I should do something truly special for it. So instead of covering the usual three books, I read 10 Destroyer novels. Some are fan favorites; others were suggested as must-reads. So settle back and enjoy, since there is no way I’m ever going to attempt this one again. Well, at least not soon.”

Grossman’s Destroyer mission can be found here. Readers interested in learning more about the Remo Williams books should visit the Destroyer Club site.

And by the way, if you missed celebrating the 100th BBB&B column, you can read all about it here.

You Can’t Win ’Em All

Photographs of 82-year-old American actor Tony Curtis at Harrod’s in London--“frail, bald and wheelchair-bound”--have stirred author Ed Gorman (Sleeping Dogs) to remember how, back in the early 1990s, when both of them were represented by the William Morris Agency, their respective agents tried to get him to collaborate with Curtis in writing a series of mystery novels.

By then, Curtis had starred not only in such memorable pictures as Sweet Smell of Success (1957), The Defiant Ones (1958), and Some Like It Hot (1959), but he’d also headlined in a pair of TV crime-related series, The Persuaders! (which also starred Roger Moore) and the short-lived NBC Mystery Movie component McCoy. Curtis had also of course played a killer in The Boston Strangler (1968) and co-starred in the detective drama Vega$ with Robert Urich (who was later to take the lead in Spenser: For Hire). It would’ve been interesting to see how those experiences flavored the fiction he wrote with Gorman (or, rather, let Gorman ghost-write).

But such was not to be. It seems that Curtis’ 1993 autobiography “didn’t live up to publisher expectations,” Gorman notes in his blog, “so our mystery series came to naught.” Too bad. I, for one, would be interested to know what they might have produced.

“Never” Has Finally Arrived

Did you know that there was an original, never-used theme for the 1983 feature film Never Say Never Again, which found Sean Connery reprising his signature role as British super-spy James Bond? The film was controversial for a variety of reasons: It wasn’t part of the Bond canon produced by EON and United Artists; it was a remake of the 1965 movie Thunderball; and its production brought to a head a fierce legal dispute over the story’s source material.

But the winding path to that film’s debut includes yet another hullabaloo, according to Tim Lucas’ Video Watchblog. He quotes composer and sometime actor Stephen Forsyth as saying:

During the filming of the James Bond movie NEVER SAY NEVER AGAIN, I co-wrote the title song for the movie with Jim Ryan. Warner Bros. informed our attorney that the song was to be used as the title song in the picture. However, shortly before its release, Warner Bros. informed us that the song could not be used because Michel Legrand, who wrote the score, threatened to sue them, claiming that contractually he had the right to the title song. So my song was never released.

The legendary Phyllis Hyman was my first choice to sing the song and working with her is one of the highlights of my musical career. I personally auditioned and sang the song to her while she was having breakfast in her manager’s office. After agreeing to sing the song, she arrived at the studio and, without any rehearsal and only having heard the song sung once at the breakfast audition, sang the song in one perfect take.

Hyman, who committed suicide in July 1995, apparently thought the Never Say Never Again theme was “her best and favorite recording.” However, that piece disappeared into history. Until now. Here’s the mediocre theme that was released with the film; and here’s Hyman’s original introduction to that Bond yarn. Which do you prefer?

* * *

While we’re on the subject of Bond, James Bond, note that the London Times has posted an interactive guide to the Imperial War Museum’s new exhibit, “For Your Eyes Only: Ian Fleming and James Bond.” So you can experience the show without the costly inconvenience of paying the plane fare to the British capital.

(Hat tip to Bish’s Beat.)

READ MORE: “More Bond Where This Came From,” by Tim Lucas (Video Watchblog); “Winehouse In or Out for Bond Theme?” (Hemingway’s Lounge).

Save the Earth, Plant a Body

This being Earth Day, it’s appropriate to turn one’s thoughts to crime and mystery novels featuring environmental and ecological themes. As it happens, there are many more works of that variety than I’d supposed. Look here, here, and here.

Science Friction

While I’m passionate about crime and thriller fiction, I still read books in the science-fiction and horror categories, as time permits. And I have contacts with authors in all of these genres, among them Richard Morgan, whose work I have followed ever since he debuted with the novel Altered Carbon, one of January Magazine’s favorite books of 2002.

Not long ago, I had the chance to talk with Morgan about his excellent “future noir” novel from 2007, Black Man (also known in the States as Thirteen), and how it was nominated for a Gumshoe Award--a commendation usually given to straightforward crime fiction. We got into a whole riff about how respectful crime-fiction fans are, when compared with science-fiction fans, and as we chatted, Morgan took notes. It seems he’d been commissioned to write a piece on this very topic. As it turned out, the publisher decided his finished essay was too controversial for publication. But Morgan, not being fearful of courting strong opinions, decided to post--on his own Web site--his thoughts on why SF fans are more filled with vitriol than their crime-fiction-loving cousins.

He writes, in part:

Suffice it to say that while all this made for a fascinating conversation, neither Ali nor I could nail down any conclusive explanation for the difference. See, it is true that there’s more money around in crime fiction, the market is about five or six times as large. But that doesn’t mean crime writers are all getting rich. A Nielsen survey in 2003 found that a massive fifty percent of all crime sales the previous year were accounted for by just fifteen bestselling writers. And that leaves a lot of little guys out in the cold. Quoting the survey, an article in The Independent sounded the alert that publishers were taking a pretty savage axe to their crime lists, dropping less popular writers and cutting back on their output of new talent. And as for respectability, well, in the very same article, no lesser crime luminary than Ian Rankin was quoted as saying that the literary mainstream still seemed blind in their elitism to any idea that there might be quality writing coming out of the crime genre.

Click here to find Morgan’s full essay.

If the Gumshoe Fits ...

Although in discussing the 2008 Gumshoe Awards, Mystery Ink editor David J. Montgomery was hesitant to commit himself to presenting a Best Crime Fiction Website Award this time around, he and his fellow judges have done so--and given it to somebody who’s deserved that commendation for a long time. Kevin Burton Smith, editor-creator of The Thrilling Detective Web Site--which just celebrated its 10th anniversary--is this year’s winner in that category.

Here’s the full rundown of the latest Gumshoe recipients:

Best Mystery: The Tin Roof Blowdown, by James Lee Burke (Simon & Schuster)

Also nominated: The Unquiet, by John Connolly (Atria); Mistress of the Art of Death, by Ariana Franklin (Putnam); The Shotgun Rule, by Charlie Huston (Ballantine); and What the Dead Know, by Laura Lippman (Morrow)

Best Thriller: The Watchman, by Robert Crais (Simon & Schuster)

Also nominated: Bad Luck and Trouble, by Lee Child (Delacorte); Power Play, by Joseph Finder (St. Martin’s Press); The Book of Air and Shadows, by Michael Gruber (Morrow); and Thirteen, by Richard K. Morgan (Del Rey)

Best First Novel: Big City, Bad Blood, by Sean Chercover (Morrow)

Also nominated: Stigma, by Philip Hawley Jr. (Harper); The Spellman Files, by Lisa Lutz (Simon & Schuster); Head Games, by Craig McDonald (Bleak House Books); and Mr. Clarinet, by Nick Stone (HarperCollins)

Lifetime Achievement: Donald E. Westlake

Of this author’s accomplishments, Mystery Ink remarks: “Donald E. Westlake is one of the most prolific authors in the crime genre, having written books of nearly every conceivable type, ranging from comic capers to thrillers to noir. He’s written private eye novels, cop novels, historical novels, even erotic novels. More impressively, most of them are pretty damn good, and some of them are great. For maintaining a tradition of writing excellence for nearly 50 years, Westlake is a most deserving winner of the award for Lifetime Achievement. (Read the tribute essay to Donald E. Westlake.)”

Best Crime Fiction Website: The Thrilling Detective Web Site

Mystery Ink says: “Edited by Kevin Burton Smith, The Thrilling Detective Web Site has been a comprehensive resource on private eye fiction, and the crime genre more generally, for over a decade. A one-stop destination with a wealth of information, The Thrilling Detective includes author and book guides, reviews, news, information on film and TV, original fiction and more. It is an essential guide for fans of P.I. novels or anyone looking to learn more about detective fiction.”

Demolition Magazine picked up the Best Crime Fiction Website honor in 2007, and January Magazine won the category in 2005 for its crime-fiction coverage.

Congratulations to all of this year’s winners.

Sweepings: The Post-Break Edition

I returned last evening from a pleasant weekend spent in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. My wife and I had driven up from Seattle for two reasons: 1) to celebrate our 17th (Omigod, can it really be that many?!) wedding anniversary, and 2) to visit January Magazine editor Linda L. Richards and her partner, David Middleton. Although weather forecasters had said it would rain, rain, rain all weekend long, it only sprinkled a little on Friday afternoon. The rest of the time brought chilly temps, but sunshine. (How does one go about getting a job as a meteorologist in the Pacific Northwest? It’s so obviously guesswork to say what the next day will bring here.) This left plenty of time to enjoy Vancouver, which is one of the nicest cities in North America, and to chat at length (on books, American politics, and Scotch) with Linda and David, who make up one of our few “couple friends.” It was also nice to get away for a bit from the business of blogging as well as my actual job, penning books. Over the last four months, as I’ve worked through my San Francisco photo history, I haven’t had a whole lot of time to just relax--though it’s been much needed.

But of course, there’s so much to catch up on in the blogosphere, now that I’m back in my office.

• My being out of town has left me being one of the last people to comment on the London Times’ new list of the “50 Greatest Crime Writers.” On the whole, it seems to be an improvement on the Daily Telegraph’s recent rundown of “Fifty Crime Writers to Read Before You Die.” It at least includes--as the Telegraph’s list should have, too--James M. Cain (#8), Maj Sjöwall and Per Wahlöö (#15), Ross Macdonald (#19), John Harvey (#23), and Val McDermid (#28). But there’s still no sign here of Ross Thomas, Laura Lippman, Erle Stanley Gardner, or Ken Bruen, just to name a few of the missing. Let’s hope that The Rap Sheet’s upcoming Crime Life List will be a bit more representative of this diverse genre. In addition to the Times’ catalogue of 50 writers, introduced by Marcel Berlins, the paper also features a tribute to Raymond Chandler, by William Boyd (Restless); British Prime Minister Gordon Brown’s comments on Scottish novelist Ian Rankin (Exit Music); and Nicci French’s remembrance of Wilkie Collins. You’ll find links to all of the Times’ special crime-fiction coverage here.

• Tony Black interviews Craig McDonald for Shots. The funniest (weirdest?) part is where McDonald describes his experiences talking with modern crime novelists:

[James] Ellroy has been a good subject because he’s tended to open up to me in a different way than with most interviewers. I think that might be because I made it clear up front the first time how deep my reading of his novels goes and I never quizzed him about his mother’s murder, a subject he’s tired to death of. [James] Crumley was great to interview ... Really, most of the crime writers I’ve interviewed have been terrific and very forthcoming. The only exception might be a certain author of a cat mystery series who I agreed to interview to my own continuing surprise. I read two of her cat novels. The interview was a kind of train wreck and one of the few I never fully transcribed. I don’t even think I have the tape anymore. At one point, she began answering my questions in the persona of her cat.

You’ll find the full interview here.

• In last Friday’s review wrap-up, while commenting on a New Mystery Reader interview with Declan Hughes, author of The Price of Blood, Irish writer-blogger Declan Burke (The Big O) remarked that I might appreciate Hughes’ reference to Ross Macdonald’s 1959 novel, The Galton Case, as “The Great Gatsby of crime fiction.” Indeed, that’s an excellent plug for Macdonald’s turning-point private-eye work. And it reminds me that I have intended to plug a blog called Pop Sensation, which comments--in frequently humorous fashion--on classic paperback covers. A couple of those covers come from books by Macdonald (né Kenneth Millar). Most recently, blogger Rex Parker (Can that really be his name?) showcased the 1950 Lion Books edition of Trouble Follows Me. Prior to this, he tackled the even nicer 1960 Bantam softcover edition of The Three Roads--like Trouble, a book that preceded the introduction of Macdonald’s famous Los Angeles gumshoe, Lew Archer. If you haven’t been keeping up with Parker’s blog, it’s time you began.

• Speaking of blogs worth reading, Vince Keenan’s low-key site commenting on “pop culture, high and low, past and present,” just celebrated its fourth anniversary. Did no one remember to bake a cake? Whoops. Maybe next year.

• The Noir of the Week film site tackles one of the classics of this genre: 1951’s Strangers on a Train, which was directed by Alfred Hitchcock from a screenplay penned in part by Raymond Chandler and based on the 1950 novel of the same name by Patricia Highsmith. That all adds up to solid-gold provenance, if you ask me. Noir of the Week’s excellent commentary about this film comes in two parts, here and here.

• I’ve been remiss in not mentioning Steve Lewis’ effort to post, in his Mystery*File blog, “the covers and contents of all of the issues of a pulp called Complete Detective Novel Magazine that are in my collection. This,” he adds, “is in conjunction with a far more reaching project called the Crime Fiction Index, which is being compiled under the direction of Phil Stephensen-Payne.” You’ll find the first installment of that series here; the latest is here.

• So which gorgeous blond model-actress inspired the cover of Quantum of Solace, the forthcoming (in August) Penguin paperback re-issue of Ian Fleming’s 1960 short-story collection. The title of the original book was of course For Your Eyes Only, and “Quantum of Solace” was merely the name of one of five James Bond short stories contained within. But the October 2008 film Quantum of Solace, in which Daniel Craig reprises his role as Agent 007, has provoked Penguin to put out an edition of the 1960 collection under that same title. Paul Bishop has his own thoughts on who the cover model most resembles. Personally, I think his first choice (the star of The Nanny Diaries) is right for Quantum, but his other candidate (the star of Æon Flux) was the inspiration for the blonde fronting the 2003 Penguin edition of For Your Eyes Only. Any other suggestions?

• Bish’s Beat seems to be “Bond Beat” today. Paul Bishop notes the passing last week of Richard Chopping, “Best known for designing and illustrating the moriginal first editions of Ina Flemings James Bond novels.”

• There are some staffing changes in the works at the Web site Reviewing the Evidence. A note dropped into the Dorothy-L list-serv explains that “Yvonne Klein will take over the editing of the site while Sharon [Wheeler] takes a six-month sabbatical to work on other projects. Sharon will act as editor-in-chief and will continue to review for the site, as well as co-ordinating the ‘Sixty Seconds With ...’ interview slot. Barbara Franchi will remain as publisher and as point of contact for the weekly prize draw.”

• Jim Anthony, “Super-Detective,” may not be the most familiar crime-fiction character around nowadays. In fact, I’d never heard of him until this morning. However, the character was evidently quite something half a century ago, especially in the pulpy pages of Super-Detective (see here and here). As the Pulp Heroes Web site explains, “Jim Anthony was created by Robert Leslie Bellem and W.T. Ballard and appeared in Super-Detective from 1940 to 1943, starting with ‘Dealer in Death’ in October 1940. He was half Irish and half Native American and was a ... well, Doc Savage ‘homage.’ He used lots of gadgets and unlike Doc Savage had an eye for the ladies.” I bring this up, because Off-Trail Publications (most familiar for its Wade Hammond series) is bringing out a twin-pack of Anthony stories, Super-Detective Flip Book: Two Complete Novels. As the press materials explain, “The first novel, Legion of Robots, is a wild and woolly science-fiction opus that finds Anthony in full hero-pulp mode, battling the sinister Rado Ruric and his automaton accomplices across the breadth of North America. The second, Murder’s Migrants, is a timely-as-today’s-headlines tale taken from later in Anthony’s pulpwood career, when his editors had changed him from a Doc Savage-type superhero to a more hard-boiled kind of crime-fighter. ... Introductions for each novel, penned by writers and pulp scholars John McMahan and John Wooley, supply plenty of background information on Anthony and his creators, including his rather close relationship with perhaps the most well-known fictional superhero of them all--the Krypton native who wore a big red ‘S’ on his chest!” I haven’t seen this double-book yet, but it’s supposed to be a shorty--just 176 pages long. I guess Anthony was a quick crime-solver, if nothing else.

• Finally, a follow-up to my post about receiving a badly flawed copy of Frank Tallis’ third Maxim Lieberman historical mystery, Fatal Lies, from Amazon UK. When I returned home last evening, there in my pile of mail awaited a replacement copy of Tallis’ novel. It came quite fast, after I let Amazon know the problem, and I didn’t even have to send my copy with the duplicated pages back to Britain first. Very good service, indeed, and much better than expected. I look forward to returning to Tallis’ tale.

Page 123

Given my rather small circle of friends, I usually avoid having to participate in blogging memes (aka high-tech chain letters), but Declan Burke, the self-proclaimed Grand Vizier at Crime Always Pays, has passed a new one my way. The rules are these:

1. Pick up the nearest book.
2. Open to page 123.
3. Find the fifth sentence.
4. Post the next three sentences.
5. Tag five people, and acknowledge who tagged you.

1. Hmm. It says “the nearest book,” not the one you happen to be reading right now. So I have to go with This Is San Francisco, a 1948 non-fiction work about California’s wildest city by onetime San Francisco Chronicle columnist Robert O’Brien. It’s sitting on my desk, just to my left.

2-4. The sixth, seventh, and eighth sentences read this way:

By sundown, the town was rocking with celebrating drunks, and one group of revelers staggered along the street kicking in doors and picking up free drinks at each house. In the course of this alcoholic pilgrimage, Big Joe Cannon kicked down the door of the Mexican monte dealer.

When he woke the next day, it didn’t seem so funny to Big Joe, and he went back to apologize to the gambler.

OK, I’m going to cheat here a little, because these sentences taken out of context are pretty darn meaningless. I feel the need to point out that author O’Brien is recalling here some dangerous doings in old Downieville, the county seat of Sierra County, northeast of San Francisco. The story centers on a woman named Juanita, “a lovely, twenty-four-year-old Spanish-Indian with large and shining eyes, long raven hair and an olive skin,” who was also the mistress of the Mexican monte dealer mentioned above.

Big Joe Cannon had come into town from the gold fields to celebrate the Fourth of July, 1851, and had in the course of that gotten drunk. Riotously so. O’Brien goes on to explain that when Cannon went back into Downieville the next day to apologize to that Mexican card sharp, he encountered Juanita. “He said something to her, and, for all anyone knows now, it might have been a couple of four-letter words, or it might have been ‘Good morning,’” O’Brien recalls. “At any rate, whether it was what he said, or simply the sight of him, Juanita’s dark eyes lost their softness. She left the room. She returned with a long knife and with passionate strength drove it through Big Joe’s breastbone and into his heart.” Juanita was subsequently lynched for her crime, allegedly making her the first woman to be executed in California.

Who says history books can’t be engaging?

5. So, who to tag next with this assignment? I’m going to pick my Rap Sheet blogging buddies Anthony Rainone, Linda L. Richards, and Mark Coggins, plus Danny Wagner at The Hungry Detective and Nathan Cain at Independent Crime. Have fun, guys.

The House (and Apartments and Jaguars and ...) that Jack Helped Build

There really hasn’t been much doubt that international hottie and man of mystery Lee Child’s books have been a big, fat success almost since the publication of The Killing Floor in 1997. However, a funny little interview in the money section of The Times’ Web site ends any possible doubt. Child, whose 12th Jack Reacher novel, Nothing to Lose, was published in the UK last month (it hits U.S. bookstore shelves in June), tells The Times about some of the cool toys Jack Reacher has helped him obtain.

There are, for instance, the two apartments in Manhattan--one for living, one reserved exclusively for work. “The apartments cost about $950,000 each” about 10 years ago and “are in the same building so I have an 18-floor commute on the elevator.” The theme of live/work houses are repeated “inland from St. Tropez” and “a little market town” in France.

Child reports he was a “weakness” for mechanical watches, and the most extravagant thing he ever bought was a timepiece by Fabergé. “It runs a couple of minutes fast every day and it cost more than my Jaguar,” the author explains.

When asked about his worst investment, Child talks about his automobiles. “I change cars quite frequently and of course you lose a fortune on them.”

He says his best investment, though, was when he spent “£3.99 on paper and pencils to write my first book, which came out 11 years ago and is earning me a fortune all over the world.”

The Times interview is here.

Birth of the Detective Story

According to The Writer’s Almanac, the first detective story met the world on April 20, 1841, with the publication of a tale by the esteemed Mr. Poe:

In 1841, on this day, the first detective story was published. In his story “The Murders in the Rue Morgue,” published in Graham’s Magazine, Edgar Allan Poe created mystery’s first fictional detective, C. Auguste Dupin. The story introduced many of the elements of mysteries that are still popular today: the genius detective, the not-so-smart sidekick, the plodding policeman and the use of the red herring to lead readers off the track.

The rest, as they say, is history. The Almanac entry in question is here. Text and audio versions of Poe’s story are available here.

Hocus Focus

Following up on my previous post about appearing as a guest on this week’s edition of the KSAV “global radio” series Talking Television with Dave White, an archive of that show is now available online. Click here to listen.

I had been asked to speak on the subject of Bill Bixby’s 1973-1974 TV series, The Magician, but the show was focused more generally on Bixby’s career and accomplishments. Also making guest appearances that night were Renee Tufo, who’s leading a campaign to win Bixby posthumous induction into the Television Academy Hall of Fame; and Brandon Cruz, who was Bixby’s child co-star in The Courtship of Eddie’s Father (1969-1972). Because Cruz was “kind of a last minute addition,” according to host Ed Robertson, and because he had so many interesting tales to tell (including one about how Bixby’s first wife, Brenda Benet, was apparently the first naked woman he ever saw in the flesh), my participation was scaled back a bit. But I still had a chance to talk about The Magician in the last third of the show, and Robertson says he’ll invite me back sometime to say more.

I’ll let you all know if that happens.

Meanwhile, I’m embedding here the main title sequence from the 1973 pilot film for The Magician. It’s very much like the intro to the show that would follow, except the latter used a different typeface for its titles, and--for some peculiar reason--re-created a scene picked up from the pilot, which had originally found actress Elizabeth Ashley kissing Bixby, substituting another woman in the same circumstances. Nostalgia buffs, you may begin reveling now.

Pod People Are Here!

On the subject of audio interviews, note that Shannon Clute and Richard Edwards have now made available four podcasts from Philadelphia’s recent NoirCon. You’ll find all those shows at the Behind the Black Mask site.

The Truth? It’s Out There

This has nothing at all to do with books ... except for maybe a mitt-full of tie-ins published at the height of X-Files mania in the mid-to-late 1990s. Still, word that the second X-Files film now has a name seemed worthy of note:

The second big-screen spinoff of the paranormal TV adventure will be called “The X-Files: I Want to Believe,” Chris Carter, the series’ creator and the movie’s director and co-writer, told The Associated Press.

Distributor 20th Century Fox signed off on the title Wednesday.

The title is a familiar phrase for fans of the series that starred David Duchovny and Gillian Anderson as FBI agents chasing after aliens and supernatural happenings. “I Want to Believe” was the slogan on a poster Duchovny’s UFO-obsessed agent Fox Mulder had hanging in the cluttered basement office where he and Anderson’s Dana Scully worked.

The Associated Press story is here.

UPDATE: The trailer for this X-Files film can be found here.

Did You Win?

Just over a week ago, we announced a contest to win free copies of the forthcoming thriller Volk’s Shadow, Brent Ghelfi’s follow-up to Volk’s Game (2007). The rules were simple: Contestants were asked to e-mail us with the title, author, and a brief description of their favorite Russia-set crime novel or suspenser. Although participation was somewhat less than we’d hoped it would be, we did receive a couple of dozen entries, and from those we’ve now chosen, at random, the five winners. They are:

• Patti Abbott of Grosse Pointe, Michigan
• Kristen Andrews of Windermere, Florida
• Alan Cranis of Los Angeles, California
• Cory Highfield of Florence, Kentucky
• Connie McGinnis of Metropolis, Illinois

Not surprisingly, considering that it’s probably the most familiar novel in this field, more contestants chose Martin Cruz Smith’s Gorky Park (1981) than any other Russia-backdropped work. McGinnis called that ground-breaking book “one of the best mysteries ever. It succeeds in making the foreign familiar with its complex story and introduction to the unforgettable [police detective] Arkady Renko.” Adds Abbott: “It was successful on so many levels: creating a wonderful protagonist who would stand the test of time (witness him in Stalin’s Ghost 25 years later). Smith explained so well how crimes were handled in the then-glasnost Soviet Union to the West. The atmosphere is terrific and the crime is both complex and compelling. Even the lesser characters come to life. A tough act to follow.”

However, there were some other novels suggested. Brian Garfield’s Kolchak’s Gold (1974), for instance. And two more installments from Smith’s signature Renko series, Polar Star (1989) and Wolves Eat Dogs (2004), the latter having been one of January Magazine’s favorite books of 2004. (With all of these people reading the Renko novels, is it any wonder that the laconic Moscow detective showed up prominently on Rara-Avis’ list of the “the top 100 hard-boiled characters of the 20th Century”?) In addition, Highfield pitched in a couple of estimable but not as widely read titles: Stuart M. Kaminsky’s Death of a Dissident from 1981 (“Kaminsky’s first in a series highlighting Inspector Porfiry Rostnikov. An excellent series that is set in Moscow. Inspector Rostnikov not only has to worry about the criminals in Russia, but also the bureaucracy in the police department and the KGB. I like the book because it is similar to [Ed] McBain’s 87th Precinct series.”); and Steve Berry’s 2004 novel, The Romanov Prophecy (“It was appealing to me because the story ties in the story of the Romanovs in the past to a story that takes place in Moscow today.”).

Congratulations to all of the winners. You should soon each receive in the mail an advance reading copy of Volk’s Shadow from publisher Henry Holt & Company.

In the meantime, does anybody else have suggestions of Russia-set mysteries or thrillers that the rest of us ought to read, too?

It’s All in the Briefs, Ma’am

• Wanna win a Shamus? The Private Eye Writers of America has just posted its submission rules for the 2008 Shamus Award competition. Click here. And good luck.

• Why can’t we have more book covers like this one?

• Science writer and reader James K. Bashkin has finally posted the concluding installment of his three-part encounter with Chinese-born St. Louis novelist Qiu Xiaolong (Red Mandarin Dress) in his blog, Nearly Nothing But Books. A very brief Part I can be found here, with Part II posted here, and Part III available here.

• Euro Crime’s Karen Meek reports that the lead roles have been cast for a three-part British TV adaptation of Val McDermid’s 2000 novel, A Place of Execution. The details are here.

• Ray Banks talks to Shots’ Damien Seaman about his new novel (No More Heroes), the state of contemporary crime fiction, crime as a “legitimate form of political or social unrest,” and his interest in race relations. Click here to read it all.

• Juri Nummelin investigates the meager history of Finnish private eyes and the comparable heritage of Swedish private eyes.

• And there’s been so much build-up to this, that it seemed already to have happened. But in fact, only this week does London’s Imperial War Museum throw open the doors on its new exhibit, “For Your Eyes Only: Ian Fleming and James Bond.” The Times has a preview, while readers interested in knowing more should get their hands on the new tie-in book, written by Ben Macintyre, who, a decade ago, penned an astounding work (The Napoleon of Crime: The Life and Times of Adam Worth, Master Thief) about the real-life character after whom Sir Arthur Conan Doyle reportedly modeled his devious, deadly Professor James Moriarty. Video from the War Museum’s exhibition can be seen here. More on this spring’s Ian Fleming centenary can be found here.

“You Need More Books! You Know You Do!”

Since The Rap Sheet was one of the earliest contributors to that mighty migrating mystery-fest known as the Carnival of the Criminal Minds, we’ve been keeping track of its progress ever since. This week, it was finally dumped back into the hands of its creator, librarian and author Barbara Fister (In the Wind).

The quality of this series has, quite frankly, been inconsistent. Some contributors have put more energy into compiling useful or interesting individual blog posts than others. However, the intention of the project remains a good one: to introduce readers to the Web’s astounding cornucopia of writing about crime fiction. And credit for the idea belongs to Fister.

So it’s interesting to see how she takes up the gauntlet. Like a number of her predecessors, she opts for the themed Carnival post, focusing “on blogs that are book barkers”--sites that encourage you to read more (and more), and damn those to-be-read piles already begging for your attention. Among her mix, Fister references some of our favorites (Detectives Beyond Borders, International Noir Fiction, Material Witness, and Euro Crime), plus a few that even we hadn’t heard of before (I Read, Therefore I Am and Nearly Nothing But Novels). All too frequently, these Carnival collections of links cause us to expand The Rap Sheet’s already cascading blogroll.

Again, Fister’s big tent full of fun can be found here. An archive of previous Carnival entries can be found here.

Next up in the Carnival queue: Bernd Kochanowski’s Internationale Krimis. That ought to be especially interesting, since Herr Kochanowski writes almost exclusively in German.

* * *

Speaking of Barbara Fister, she’s just published a new article in Library Journal wherein she suggests some ways the modern book-publishing business might overcome its crises of escalating costs and redoubling competition.

“[L]lately, it’s become clear that the book industry really does need to be saved: from itself,” Fister opines. “It might start by looking more closely at what libraries do. After all, libraries know that developing a strong book culture involves making it easy for people to discover and sample new books, to acquire books quickly even if they aren’t on the local library’s shelves, and to share their reading experiences with others. One of the most powerful reasons for choosing a book is having another reader recommend it. In short, sharing isn’t the problem. It’s the solution.”

The full piece is here.

Heather Thomas in 2012

I received this note yesterday from blogger-film critic Vince Keenan:

Your recent mention of [The Fall Guy’s] Heather Thomas reminds me of this Politico piece from over the weekend. Who’d have guessed that your former crush would go on to become the new doyenne of the Hollywood left? http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0408/9559.html

Which, I guess, just goes to prove that Americans in these recessionary times don’t have the luxury of sticking to just one career for a lifetime.

Through the Magic of the Airwaves

Uh-oh, I’ve gone and done it now. I agreed to be one of the guests on tomorrow night’s edition of Talking Television with Dave White, broadcast on “global radio station KSAV.org.” TV historian Ed Robertson promotes this show in his blog:

Television icon Bill Bixby, who graced the screens of millions of television households through his roles on The Courtship of Eddie’s Father, The Magician, The Incredible Hulk and other popular network shows throughout the 1970s and ’80s, will be the subject of the April 15 edition of Talking Television with Dave White on Share-a-Vision Radio, KSAV.org. Scheduled to join Frankie Montiforte and me are actor/musician Brandon Cruz, Bixby’s co-star on Eddie’s Father; Renee Tufo, who is leading a campaign to win posthumous induction for Bixby in the Television Academy Hall of Fame; and J. Kingston Pierce, senior editor of January Magazine, whose writings on Bixby include coverage of The Magician, the popular Bixby series credited for triggering the current wave of stage magicians such as David Copperfield, Criss Angel and Penn & Teller. Listeners are invited to participate in the program by calling (800) 407-KSAV or by e-mailing talk@ksav.org.

The 90-minute Webcast will be repeated on Thursday, April 17, beginning at 7:30 p.m. ET, 4:30 p.m. PT, also on KSAV.org, then subsequently available on demand via the archives pages at KSAV.org, as well as in podcast from via iTunes.

Although it’s not clear from this write-up, tomorrow night’s live edition of Talking Television with Dave White will begin at 10:30 p.m. ET, 7:30 p.m. PT. To hear the show, simply log on to KSAV.org and click the “Listen Live” button.

I’ve never been fond of appearing on TV or radio. I think I do my best work on the printed (or at least blogged) page. However, the Web site Go To Quiz apparently thinks I have the perfect voice for broadcasting. After reading about its “What American Accent Do You Have?” questionnaire in Bill Crider’s blog, I decided to take the test. Here are the results:


Seems this quiz isn’t foolproof. Although I lived for about a year in Detroit, Michigan, I’m actually from the Pacific Northwest, and now live in Seattle--which, the last time I checked a map, is nowhere near the great American “Midland.” (Then again, these results could reflect the linguistic influence of my father, who was born in St. Louis but moved to Atlanta when he was young.)

If you’d like to take this quiz yourself, just click here.

And should you feel like tuning in for tomorrow’s broadcast of Talking Television with Dave White (or listening to the show later via the KSAV archives), please forgive me for my inevitable blunders and random asides. It’s not every day, after all, that I appear on the same program with Brandon Cruz.

Is It Time for My Nap Yet?

My own realization of how television can make me feel old came last September, when I realized that onetime poster babe Heather Thomas, co-star of the 1981-1986 ABC-TV series The Fall Guy, was celebrating her 50th birthday. But TV Squad’s Richard Keller today offers “eight more signs from television that you are getting old.” Between these and persistent reminders from AARP that we’re finally eligible to join, it’s hard for some of us to feel young anymore.

Now With Extra Pulp

Would that we could all be immortalized on paperback book covers.

Blogging Chandler

In association with the Windy City’s “One Book, One Chicago” program--which has chosen Raymond Chandler’s The Long Goodbye as its April citywide read--the contributors to the blogging collective The Outfit today begin opining about different aspects of Chandler’s 1953 novel. First up to the plate is Sara Paretsky, who provides a synopsis of the author’s life, along with part of a note Chandler scribbled to his agent, Bernice Baumgarten, after she’d delivered to him some negative feedback on the first draft of his novel:

I knew the character of Marlowe had changed and I thought it had to, because the hardboiled stuff was too much of a pose after all this time. But I did not realize [he] had become Christlike, and sentimental, and that he ought to be deriding his own emotions.

It would be interesting to hear more about that first draft of The Long Goodbye. Let’s hope one of Paretsky’s partners in crime picks up this thread in later posts. According to Marshal Zeringue, The Outfit’s Chandler-related posts will run “through the next two weeks. They’ll have a different blog up almost every weekday.”

Keep up with them here.

Bull’s-eye

Another day, another “top 10” list. This time, the subject is movie hit men (and women). The selections, made by the London Times’ Kevin Maher, come complete with video clips.

Don’t Miss Your Chance

Today is the last day to enter to win a free advance reader copy of the thriller Volk’s Shadow, by Brent Ghelfi. Just send us the titles (and author names) from one or more Russian-set crime novels/thrillers that you’ve enjoyed in the past, along with a sentence or two about what you found appealing in those books. Your choices can be either new or old.

Contest entries should be e-mailed to jpwrites@sprynet.com. Include your full name and snail-mail address in the body of the note. And in the subject line, write “Book Contest.” We’ll pick the five winners at random and announce them here on Wednesday.

Participation in this contest has been somewhat lower than expected, so your odds of winning a copy of Volk’s Shadow are actually higher than you might think.

And Yet More Reasons to Go on Living

It’s been a regrettably long while since we last checked in on Dave Robeson’s Bloodstained Bookshelf catalogue of coming crime fiction. So it’s understandable that we should be surprised--and downright pleased--by many of the works we now understand are being readied for sale in the States. Those include new works by Anna Blundy (Vodka Neat, May), Kjell Eriksson (The Demon of Dakar, May), Loren D. Estleman (Frames, May--the first novel-length outing for his film detective, Valentino), Richard E. Crabbe (Hell’s Gate, June), Les Roberts (King of the Holly Hop, June--the return of private eye Milan Jacovich!), Robert Crais (Chasing Darkness, July), Tana French (The Likeness, July), Luiz Alfredo Garcia-Roza (Blackout, August), Stuart M. Kaminsky (People Who Walk in Darkness, August--the comeback of Moscow policeman Porfiry Rostnikov!), Andrea Camilleri (August Heat, September), Michael Connelly (The Brass Verdict, October), and Mickey Spillane and Max Collins (The Goliath Bone, October--the widely anticipated return of private eye Mike Hammer!).

One title not included on Robeson’s list, perhaps because it’s not going to be filed under “crime fiction,” is Dennis Lehane’s ambitious standalone historical novel, The Given Day, based around the 1919 Boston police strike. It’s due out in late September.

Check out all the possibilities here.