It’s All Gutter Talk

Following on last month’s debut of the semi-annual magazine-cum-book Murdaland: Crime Fiction for the 21st Century comes news that Out of the Gutter (OOTG), another genre print periodical--this one from southern Oregon writer-editor Matthew Louis--will make its premiere appearance on February 1 of next year. Subsequent issues will be published thrice-annually, every four months.

Of the first issue--which will include stories by Charlie Stella, Sandra Ruttan, Victor Gischler, Harry Shannon, and others--Louis tells me: “The page count has not been finalized yet, but it will be slightly above, or slightly below, or exactly 200. If the story count I just did is accurate, there are 15 pieces of short fiction, three non-fiction pieces, and then some shorter, humor pieces. The material is arranged into three categories: First, reads that should take roughly 10 minutes [to read]; then, reads that should take 15 to 20 minutes; and finally, reads that should take a half hour or more. The strategy is not only to give a reader unusual and riveting material, but to present it to them in the most accessible and practical way possible, so they can actually make use of it.” Out of the Gutter’s street price is slated at $13.50, and Louis is already taking orders at his Web site. (He’s promised to waive shipping costs “on all advance orders. Twelve bucks straight up.”)

In anticipation of Out of the Gutter’s introduction, I fired off a few questions to Louis, who signs his fiction “MLB”(“The ‘B’ in my name? Let’s say it stands for Bastard.”). He was quick to respond.

J. Kingston Pierce: What sets Out of the Gutter apart from so many other modern crime-fiction mags, both online and in print? Is it simply a matter of your taste as the editor?

Matthew Louis: First off, it was extremely important to me to have this be in print and not online. More than anything else I’m an obsessive reader and I tend to carry a book or two with me wherever I go--not a computer. I’m laying out OOTG so a person can take it with them into a situation where they need a few minutes of distraction, or they can lie down on the couch with an hour or two to kill, and in both instances find the right read.

As far as what sets OOTG apart, beyond its eye-catching visual style, the humor pieces and other extras, I hope that it is primarily a matter of my taste as an editor. No matter how you dress it up, the bottom line is whether or not a person is drawn into a story, compelled to read it through, and satisfied at its conclusion. I went for pieces of fiction with tremendous amounts of attitude, unexpected concepts and, of course, intelligent writing. Like I said, I’m first and foremost an obsessive reader, so what I’m really trying to create is the sort of book I myself would like to have on hand to drag around and crack open whenever I get a minute.

The other thing that sets OOTG apart is the recklessness and sense of fun with which the project is being approached by myself, my deputy editor, Dale Bridges, and assistant editors D.Z. Allen and Billy Elizondo. I personally have no interest in this as a money-making enterprise and I don’t think anyone else involved does either. My goal is simply to create something I can be proud of and to have a blast doing it. In my slightly younger days, when I wasn’t reading I spent my time playing in punk bands, so the idea of doing a lot of work and a lot of hustling and not getting paid for it isn’t anything new to me. Writing songs, recording and mixing demos, designing logos and flyers, promoting shows, etc., etc., isn’t all that different from what’s been involved with getting OOTG off the ground. Both undertakings require a lot of careful work and a huge expenditure of energy, and in the end you’re not likely to make a million but you’re glad for the experience and glad for the people you impressed or, more likely, offended.

JKP: There seems to be a resurgence of interest in pulpish fiction nowadays. To what do you attribute this rediscovery, and do you think it’s only a trend?

ML: I think rather than a random rediscovery and embracing of pulp fiction, it’s a rejection of pseudo-intellectualism and fallacious standards with regard to what is and isn’t art. As an alternative to pulp fiction (broadly defined), you have the material that fills literary journals and the so-called literature on bookstore shelves--and the fact is that most readers have absolutely no use for this stuff. It’s mostly produced by people without real problems and it’s mostly about people without real problems. And it’s mostly mind-numbing. So readers like me who don’t at all limit themselves to private-eye yarns or crime fiction or pulp fiction, nonetheless applaud the straightforwardness of books and stories that fall under these headings. The best situation, in my opinion, is when a writer has the knack for words and interest in human nature that is associated with the word “literature,” and the sense of pacing and love of action that is associated with pulp fiction. This is the balance I have striven to achieve in OOTG.

Do I think the interest in pulp-type fiction is a trend? If it is, I think the trend has been going on since we began generating fiction. Outside of its literal definition having to do, of course, with the paper it was once printed on, pulp fiction refers to fiction aimed at the lowest common denominator; fiction containing much, often gratuitous, sex and violence. When have we humans not loved that?

JKP: How have submissions to OOTG been going? With so many other publications asking for everything and paying nothing, do you find a hunger for more venues such as yours?

ML: Submissions have been phenomenal, as is evidenced by the list of contributors posted on the OOTG site. The thing about asking for everything and paying nothing is that what I’m asking for, writers are eager to provide. I’m not trying to convince them to sell OOTG door to door, I want them to showcase their talent in it. Writing a story is a thrill and having people respond to it is a bigger thrill. Rather than being concerned about how much I (don’t) pay, writers have been overwhelmingly appreciative of the fact that I’m taking the initiative and providing them an outlet for what they love to do.

Regarding the last part of your question, I think there’s a hunger for more unique, fearless and non-corporate venues, and I think there’s a hunger for more print venues. Hopefully, people will buy OOTG and allow me to help fill this vacuum.

JKP: Finally, tell me something about your personal background. What’s your history with publishing and crime fiction?

ML: My writing bio is somewhat limited, but here it is. I began approaching writing as a career choice two years ago. My first year was consumed with writing a novel, The Spirit Penitentiary, about poor white trash fighting, raping, and killing each other in a small, bleak California town. It is currently being shopped around to agents. Having finished my novel, this year I began generating and submitting short stories as a means to build a résumé and gain recognition. I have had some limited success, but my overall impression is there are very, very few print publications to submit short fiction to, and almost none that are interested in the extremely dark, cynical, bloody stories I write. This is why I began putting OOTG together.

I have no background in publishing. I am an autodidact and have no formal education beyond public school (in which I did not do well) and am learning publishing the same way I learn everything else--by rolling up my sleeves and doing it.

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Louis will begin accepting submissions for future issues of Out of the Gutter after February 1. Click here for deadlines and guidelines.

Something Worth Watching Again

TV Squad brings news today that Crossing Jordan, a crime drama about the Boston Medical Examiner’s Office that I’ve enjoyed ever since its debut in 2001, is returning to NBC-TV come January 21. Previously due for a move to Friday night, it’s being installed instead in its old spot on Sundays at 10 p.m. Frankly, I could be captivated just watching this program’s star, Jill Hennessy, make coffee in the morning or take out the trash, so I’m happy to see her back on the small screen bringing down murderers and causing consternation among the Beantown constabulary. Beyond the debut of Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip, this hasn’t been a great year for American television, so reliables such as Crossing Jordan are welcome.

And though I fear it might not live up to its hype, I’m also looking forward to watching Raines, the new NBC series in which Jeff Goldblum plays an eccentric Los Angeles police detective who “solves murders in a very unusual way--he turns the victims into his partners,” according to NBC publicity. “These visions are figments of Raines’ imagination, and he knows it, but when he can’t make the dead disappear, he works with them to find the killer. Through his discussions, along with the evidence, Raines’ image of the victim changes until he has a clear picture of what really happened. Only when the case is closed do the visions end. Other detectives question Raines’ sanity, and occasionally so does he. However, as long as his unique methods are helping catch criminals, Raines imagines he’ll be just fine.” It sounds like a combination of Medium and Randall and Hopkirk (Deceased). But I like Goldblum, and suspect that he can pull off the roll of a cop with ghosts in his noggin. An added bonus: the series will also feature Linda Park, one of my favorite actors from Star Trek: Enterprise. Thus far, Raines doesn’t seem to have a timeslot, but that ought to be announced soon.

The Word from Canada

Crime fiction is decently represented on The Globe and Mail’s top-100 books of 2006 list. Peter Robinson’s Piece of My Heart, William Boyd’s Restless, Michael Connelly’s Echo Park, and Ian Rankin’s The Naming of the Dead are all included, as is Kenneth J. Harvey’s Inside, which arguably deserves a place in the genre.

Short and Not So Damn Sweet

“There are other Webzines that do what we do, but they all muddy their own waters with book reviews, interviews and the such. We do fiction. That’s it ...,” says Todd Robinson, New York bartender, bouncer, and editor of the online “hardcore crime fiction” mag ThugLit, in an interview with Outsideleft. “And nobody is doing stuff like we are. As a writer, I was sick of the available markets being geared towards elderly housewives. I wanted to make a place where writers who share a creative like-mind with me could find a home for their fiction. Also, a lot of the ’zine’s that I’ve seen springing up lately tend to veer into mutual admiration society and are put together by people who can’t get published elsewhere (I recognize a lot of the names from our rejection pile) and just want to put up their own and their friends’ writing. We’ve pissed off some people, but fuck ’em. If it doesn’t qualify, it doesn’t qualify.”

Is it clear that ThugLit is a Webzine with attitude? If not, check out Robinson’s November/December issue, which includes stories by Hana K. Lee (“The Memory of My Legs”), Hugh Lessig (“Mom’s Money, Dad’s Gun”), Marianne Rogoff (“What Was He Thinking?”), and Cristobal Camaras (“A Goat, a Jaguar, and Some Yams”). And after that, go read Outsideleft’s two-part interview with “Big Daddy Thug” Robinson. The first part is essentially devoted to ThugLit, but in the second part he talks about his much-rewritten novel, The Hard Bounce, his publishing travails, and his debts to authors Richard Allen and Andrew Vachss.

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Short crime fiction seems to be busting out all over the Web. Add to your list of sources The Outpost, a new quarterly ’zine whose editor, Damien Gay, promises to introduce us to “a wide-ranging variety of stories written by Australian and New Zealand authors.” The first issue went up in October (though I just noticed it earlier this week), and features tales by Franklin Neil Karmatz (“Tyler”), Breanda Cross (“Artistic License”), Ken Cotterill (“Wright P.I. and the Circus of Death”), and others. Given the growing diversity of Aussie mysterymakers, it’s nice to see their names and work getting around. That cause is helped not only by The Outpost, but also by sites such as the Australian Crime Fiction Database and AustCrime, and by blogs including Gay’s Crime Down Under, Daniel Hatadi’s Down in the Hole, and to a lesser extent, Matilda.

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And now for the bad news: Anthony Neil Smith, one of the founders of Plots with Guns, a formerly popular and influential pulp mag on the Web (founded in 1999), has announced that the PWG archives will disappear after December 11. “So,” he writes in his blog, “take a trip down memory lane and explore our evolution. Experience the excess of Darren Subarton’s ‘Nil Desperandom,’ or [Victor] Gischler’s Christmas story (Santa and hookers?), or the early work of literary monster Scott Wolven. Check out our Big Shot issue, where we conned some of our favorite novelists into giving us a short story (with a drink for payment), and one of those--Eddie Muller’s ‘Wanda Wilcox is Trapped!’ was nominated for an Anthony Award. Read Frederick Zackel’s four-part novella! Sean Doolittle’s ‘Worth’ is here, which eventually grew into his latest novel, The Cleanup.” Of course, there’s more. Much more, when you really start scrolling down through the PWG archives.

If you’ve heard of Plots with Guns, but never looked in on it during it’s too-brief lifetime, now’s your chance to catch up. Consider this your two-week notice. Click here.

READ MORE: “Literary Badasses,” by Patrick Shawn Bagley (Hillbillies and Hitmen); “Blue Murder Christmas from the Grave,” by David Terrenoire (A Dark Planet).

King the Primitive?

One of the cheeky regular features I most enjoyed in the old Spy magazine (newly celebrated in a handsome retrospective volume) was “Review of Reviewers,” in which professional critics were taken to task for their over-the-top or below-the-belt comments, a turnabout-is-fair-play exercise that inevitably produced humor. Less funny, but certainly valuable, is Clinton Gillespie’s assessment of how critics have responded to Stephen King’s latest novel. At the Story Entertainment site, he writes:

When Stephen King’s new book, “Lisey’s Story,” debuted, literary critics reviewed it as King’s best book in years. The reviewer in the New York Times said it’s his most honest work and other critics hailed the new book [as] almost worthy of literary merit. But the critics weren’t interested in the merits of King’s story and barely mentioned it. Instead, they focused on King’s experimentations and writing style.

In the reviews, critics wrote about Mr. King’s chimerics; unlovely prose; Jungian space; daunting topography of one’s own thoughts; and his Joycean wordplay, idiosyncrasy, voluptuousness and stubborn, obsessive chronology. The reviewer for the New York Times used the first three and a half paragraphs to criticize King’s style before mentioning what the story was about.

And when the book’s content was addressed, the verdict was frequently flavored with a snobbish contempt for genre writing:

[A]mong literary critics, a writer who writes genre fiction is questioned for not writing “actual literature” and therefore writes solely for mass appeal and financial reward, as Ted Anthony hinted in his review for the Associated Press: “Will [King] continue to reign as the master of modern terror who gave the world ‘Salem’s Lot,’ ‘Cujo’ and ‘Pet Sematary’? Or will he morph into something more subtle, a writer able to harness American angst and turn it into actual literature (and, not incidentally, cash)?”

Read Gillespie’s whole article here.

By George, She’s Got It!

I first noticed Aussie actress Melissa George in a short-lived 2001 American TV series called Thieves, which had her playing one of two professional purloiners (John Stamos portrayed her partner) who are caught and forced to work for the FBI in order to stay out of the slammer. (Yeah, I know, the premise is a blatant rip-off of Robert Wagner’s It Takes a Thief. Nonetheless, I found the light-spirited Thieves charming--even if not enough other viewers did.)

Since then, George has not only appeared on the small screen (in Friends, Alias, and Monk, as well as in an unsuccessful FOX pilot based on the movie L.A. Confidential), but also in the 2005 films Derailed and The Amityville Horror. And this week, she shows up in Turistas, “an action/horror mélange about a group of clueless tourists from America, Sweden, and Australia who travel off the beaten path during a trip to Brazil and end up in the crosshairs of a human organ smuggling operation.”

In an interview for Cinematical, writer Ryan Stewart sits down with the lovely Ms. George to discuss her present and future projects, her eye-catching taste in swimwear, her own traveling experiences, and her movie preferences (“I hate horror films, to be really honest.”).

What About Edgar?

In assessing The Atlantic Monthly’s December list of the 100 “most influential figures in American history”--a rundown of dead folks that includes everyone from Abraham Lincoln and Franklin D. Roosevelt to Martin Luther King Jr., Mark Twain, and Herman Melville--critic-blogger Jerome Weeks points out what I agree is an egregious blindspot. “The lack of Edgar Allan Poe is also curious,” he writes. “Not as poet or critic or fantasist. But as the inventor of the detective story, another hugely popular art form that America created.” Read more here.

Crime Directives

British legal commentator Marcel Berlins, whose writing usually appears in The Guardian, makes a showing this week in the London Times, rounding up what he insists are the best crime books of 2006. His choices:

• The Broken Shore, by Peter Temple (Quercus)
• Christine Falls, by Benjamin Black (Macmillan)
• Piece of My Heart, by Peter Robinson (Hodder & Stoughton)
• A Walk in the Dark, by Gianrico Carofiglio (Bitter Lemon Press)
• Voices, by Arnaldur Indridason, translated by Bernard Scudder (Harvill)
• The Night Gardener, by George Pelecanos (Orion)
• The Best British Mysteries IV, by Maxim Jakubowski (Allison & Busby)

Meanwhile, in the same newspaper, critic Peter Millar picks his favorites among the last year’s crop of thrillers:

• The Swarm, by Frank Schätzing (Hodder & Stoughton)
• The Priest of Evil, by Matti Yrjänä Joensuu (Arcadia)
• The Passenger, by Chris Petit (Simon & Schuster)
• The Chemistry of Death, by Simon Beckett (Bantam)
• Medicus and the Disappearing Dancing Girls, by R.S. Downie (Michael Joseph)
• Relentless, by Simon Kernick (Bantam)
• The Ruins, by Scott Smith (Bantam)

The Times also makes scores of book recommendations in other categories. Click here.

Embracing Shameless Self-Promotion

Last year I befriended Minnesota crime novelist Anne Frasier during our time together as judges for the International Thriller Writers. After that experience, I decided to take a closer look at her work. And I was impressed, not only because her latest novel, Pale Immortal, demonstrates her abundant writing skills, but because Frasier has given considerable thought to using new technology as a means of getting her work out there in front of readers.

I asked her about those technological approaches for a forthcoming interview, which will appear in the Crime Writers’ Association’s Red Herrings magazine early next year. Here’s an extract:

Ali Karim: You did some things to market your latest work, Pale Immortal, that required thinking outside the box. Tell us about some of those things.

Anne Frasier: The biggest was probably the video. I also started blogging. That’s not unusual, other than the fact that I didn’t believe in any kind of self-promotion a year and a half ago. In addition to the video and blogging, I put together a Pale Immortal blog with book chapters, the book video, photos, and MP3s. I haven’t dedicated that much time to it, but it still gives readers an idea of what the book is about.

I also came up with the concept of Project Pimp Squad: 100 Bloggers Blogging. My plan was to get one hundred people to blog about the book and post the Pale Immortal YouTube video on their blog the day of the book’s release. I knew one hundred was aiming pretty high; I’d really hoped for fifty, but ended up with over one hundred. It was so incredible and so much fun. The members of the Pimp Squad loved it and are still talking about it. The support and sense of community was astounding. People who hadn’t planned on being involved jumped in the day of the event because they wanted in on the party.

AK: What inspired the book video, and what transpired to bring it into existence?

AF: My daughter [Martha] is a film major. She’d planned to attend grad school last year, but decided to take a year off. I’d watched several book videos and found many of them lacking. My first thought: Wow, Martha could do something fantastic with a book video. It wasn’t until a couple of months later that I started thinking she might actually be willing to make one for me. She and my son are in a band--The Chambermaids--so they put together the soundtrack.

AK: Did the story inspire them, or vice versa?

AF: They knew nothing about the book. I described the mood I was looking for, and also suggested some scenes with the order they should appear. Martha read the book months later and couldn’t believe how well the video captured something she hadn’t previously read. I think it worked because she and I tend to think alike, so when I told her what I wanted she immediately understood. Grad school started this fall, so that’s the end of her book videos for a while.

I quickly learned that it’s hard to get people to watch videos to begin with, because they’re basically being asked to view an ad. I think YouTube.com has definitely helped in that regard, because writers can embed the video on their blog and other bloggers can embed it, too. That really took the book video to a new and more immediate level.

AK: Book marketing chafes many authors. How do you feel about peddling your wares?

AF: I’m not crazy about self-promotion. I honestly don’t think a writer can do that much. I think a book needs three things: an eye-catching cover, memorable title, and a prominent bookstore placement funded by the publisher. Without those, a writer’s sales are never going to be that great. No amount of blogging or touring or chest pounding can make up for lack of backing. That said, I enjoyed making the video and I really enjoy blogging. For me, being online is all about socializing and having fun.

As Paul Valery said many years ago, and which relates to all these uses of new technology, “The future’s not what it used to be.”

The Surreal Influence of Fate

I came across this excellent piece today on the Web site of Irish writer John Connolly (The Book of Lost Things). In it, Connolly talks about meeting Stephen King during his tour through London a few weeks ago. The piece reminded me of the dilemma I faced, picking out just one of his books for signing (a restriction for those people queuing up to meet him). I ultimately settled on one of the most terrifying books I’ve ever read by King, Pet Sematary. So I was amused to hear that Connolly had quizzed King about that particular book, providing insight into the macabre and taboo-breaking work:

Pet Sematary, his 1983 novel about a Maine cemetery with the power to resurrect dead pets, is probably the most difficult of his novels for a parent to read, as Louis Creed, its protagonist, finds himself tempted to place the body of his little son, Gage, in the earth of the cemetery following a gruesome road accident, yet even this was derived from King’s own experience.

“There was a real pet cemetery near our house,” he says. “It’s gone now because the tourists took it. Basically, piece by piece, souvenir hunters took it, but everything in Pet Sematary up to a certain point actually happened, and was true. There was a whole pet cemetery with all of these crosses and markers, and we thought it was just the cutest, quaintest thing until our cat, Smucky, got run over and wound up in the cemetery. The house was beside a busy highway which was used by a lot of heavy trucks, and there was an old geezer who lived nearby who told us, ‘You better be careful on that there road, because that there road uses up a lot of animals and you don’t want it to use up one of your children.’

“Then in the spring of that year, 1979, our son Owen, who was 18 months old, ran for the road while we were flying kites one day, and I heard one of those trucks coming, and I tackled him like a football player. I brought him down so, unlike Gage Creed in the book, he lived. But I thought to myself--and again, this is the impulse a lot of times with these things--I’m going to write the worst thing I can think of, and that way it won’t happen. So I sat down and wrote Pet Sematary and as bad as I imagined it was going to be, the book turned out worse. And I thought, I’m never going to publish this and nobody is going to want to read this, but they did. It just goes to show: you should never underestimate the taste of the reading public.

To read the complete piece, click here.

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One other thing Connolly’s story made me think about: the linkages and coincidences in our world. Connolly himself described those linkages in The Killing Kind (one of January Magazine’s favorite books of 2002) as making our reality a honeycombed place. To his way of thinking, the world underfoot is fragile and danger lurks at all times, waiting to do us harm.

I’ve known John Connolly for many years, and enjoyed his books, including his most recent private eye Charlie Parker novel, The Black Angel, as well as his short fiction. And I spent a wonderful afternoon with him in Dublin, Ireland, during the winter of 2002, during which we talked about crime fiction and life. We had lunch and then talked for the rest of the afternoon, with my tape recorder running. The results of that conversation were eventually published in January.

Readers familiar with Connolly’s gothic- and supernatural-tinged Parker series will know that much of their action is based in Maine (Stephen King’s home state). I asked him if he’d ever considered relocating to Maine:

I did consider that, but the odd thing about writing and researching the U.S. for my books is that the more I go over, the less I actually want to live there, especially under the current regime. I still like America, and perhaps would like to have a base to spend long periods of time, and that would be in Maine, I guess. Relocating permanently? No, I don’t think I would. I enjoy being an outsider looking in. I like living in Europe. It’s not perfect, but show me a place that is.

Our whole talk ran for more than three hours, so the results had to be edited down for publication. And my final question to Connolly never made the cut.

Q: Talking about gothic novels. To what would you attribute the current problems facing the horror genre?

A: Apart from Stephen King, I don’t really read much contemporary horror. Most of the guys I have read, like M.R. James, have been dead for a long time. I think that one of the difficulties with the horror genre was that it shot itself in the foot. A great many bad writers started writing it, while British horror fiction had this obsession with sexual horror, and some were rather nasty, gruesome books. Clive Barker is a very talented bloke, but some of his stories are just vile, and although I really liked some of James Herbert’s work, there was a nasty streak in his work, too. You don’t get that level of unpleasantness in M.R. James. Another reason that has put people off horror was that the quality of the writing was so poor. You can call Stephen King many things, but no one can criticise the quality of his writing. He is probably the only truly popular horror writer that the genre has produced [in the last 20 years] that is read widely outside the genre.

I always remember an episode of that American cartoon series, Family Guy. It's this very dark Simpsons-style series. The lead character … is this big fat bloke with glasses, and in this episode he runs over this guy in the street while driving. The guy gets up, dusting himself down, and the family guy asks, ‘Who are you?’ And the guy tells him, ‘I'm a writer.’ The family guy screams, ‘Oh no, I’ve hit Stephen King!’ and the guy says, ‘No, I’m Dean Koontz.’ And so the family guys just shrugs his shoulders and drives away, leaving poor old Dean by the roadside. …

Which brings me back again to the subject of linkages. For shortly after I returned home, I received a call from author Mark Billingham, asking me how John was. He had heard that Connolly was in a road accident! This was news to me. So I called John, only to learn that, to my horror, a few days after we’d recorded the January interview, a white van had run into him while he was cycling around Dublin. Connolly sustained a broken arm and some other light injuries. In light of the roadway accident that could well have killed King in 1999, I couldn’t help but think of how fate plays surreal games on us.

Then again, maybe I’ve just read too much Philip K. Dick.

A Christie for Christmas

OK, I’m about to reveal something that might result in my being purged from all hard-boiled environs: I dig Agatha Christie.

Those who know me might shake their heads. After all, I’m the guy who once wrote in Mystery News that I love the hard-boiled stuff, even going to the point of saying that my kind of book is “something James Ellroy wrote while in a really foul mood.” But, every now and again, I catch myself reaching for a Christie, particularly those that feature the first series character I came to know, and the first fictional character whose obituary made it to the front page of The New York Times--the inscrutable Belgian, Hercule Poirot.

Part of my fondness for Dame Agatha is the fact she is part of my mystery-reading history. When my family would take off in the car for a vacation, my mother would buy me an Agatha Christie mystery to shut me up and keep me from harassing my sister. Christie was the first adult author I read with any interest. I became so familiar with her style that I started looking for the ejaculations. Yes, you read that correctly. In each and every Poirot novel, there’s a point where a character exclaims something so dramatically that Christie describes it as an ejaculation. I was 12 years old when I first saw that. It made me snicker then and the subsequent lack of maturity makes me smile now.

All of this came to mind when I read Kevin Wignall’s latest posting over at Contemporary Nomad. Wignall is no powder puff--he writes some edgy stuff, so I was gratified to learn that he also pops open a Christie every now and again. He writes about Murder on the Orient Express (1934):

First things first, I’m not quite sure where the “cosy” label comes from--this book deals with the savage murder of an old man who himself turns out to be a child-killer. The writing naturally sticks to the conventions of the time but the subject matter isn’t far removed from some of the best crime books of modern times. There’s even some topicality in that the Armstrong kidnapping case is clearly meant to suggest the Lindbergh case.

Second, the writing is surprisingly fresh and modern. It doesn’t go overboard with description and canters along at a brisk pace, but it manages to be evocative at the same time. Nor are the characters the cardboard cut-outs critics would lead you to expect. Yes, the plot is somewhat contrived, but no less so than that of a Jane Austen or Charles Dickens novel--and I have no doubt that many of our plots will seem the same if our books are still around in seventy years.

There are even a couple of touches which are quite postmodern and for which the McSweeney’s brigade are considered daring.

I agree with Wignall that the “cozy” label is dated and, for the most part, used as a pejorative. I prefer to call Christie stories and their brethren “traditional” mysteries. I also agree that Christie’s works continue to stand the test of time. She’s definitely a writer of her day and age, and perhaps too quaint for some. But her plotting is first-rate, her narrative constantly moves forward, and she provides little grace notes to her characters without hammering the reader over the head with accentuated significance. Hers is a writing style known best for having some restraint and for crediting the reader with intelligence.

Obviously, the fact that Wignall and I are writing about this means that we don’t hold a unanimous view. The dissenters are well represented by I.J. (Ingrid) Parker (Black Arrow), who writes in the comment section:

I used to be a big fan, but I can’t take her anymore. The books are too simple, mere games like crossword puzzles. Most of the so-called “traditional” mystery genre falls into that category. You have to play “fair” with the reader because it is a game. The killer must appear early. The victim is always an expendable character. Alibis are there to be cracked. The least likely character is it.

Parker is an immensely appealing writer and she has graciously granted me two interviews over the years, but on this point we couldn’t possibly disagree more. It seems to me that many of her criticisms of Christie could be selectively applied to everyone from Ed McBain to Lawrence Block, both of whom have more than sufficient amounts of modern-day mystery street cred.

In closing his post, Wignall invites us to celebrate the forthcoming reprinting of 15 Poirot novels in facsimile hardback editions, courtesy of HarperCollins. “Having revisited Christie after several decades,” he writes, “’m not much puzzled by her continuing success. I’m more puzzled that she isn’t read and respected even more than she is.” Read Wignall’s entire post here.

Eclectic ... and Lovin’ It

First, it was George Pelecanos. Now, the great James Sallis (Cripple Creek, Drive) has been cornered by interviewer John Kenyon at Things I’d Rather Be Doing. There are plenty of interesting moments in their back-and-forth, but I couldn’t help laughing at Sallis’ response to this question:

You will receive a Lifetime Achievement Award at Bouchercon 2007, recognizing your mystery writing. Any qualms about receiving notice for that part of your work as you try to keep your pen dipped in many different inkwells?

For many years, while being nominated again and again, I’ve successfully evaded receiving any major award. Fast footwork is everything. Now those feisty people at Bouchercon have spoiled a perfect record. Qualms? Well, it’s a lifetime achievement award, which might give one pause--what my friend Larry Block calls the “Look, he’s still alive!” award.

The full interview is available here.

Rebus Wins a Reprieve

Followers of Ian Rankin’s Edinburgh police detective, John Rebus, have reason to rejoice. As The Scotsman reports:

Ian Rankin, who previously considered killing off Detective Inspector Rebus, the star of his best-selling novels, admitted yesterday that the chain-smoking, pint-quaffing shamus had won a reprieve.

He insisted last night: “He’s not going to die at the end of the final book, that would be an indignity too far. He’s not going to go off hand in hand with Cafferty, his nemesis. He’s not going to retire to Marbella, he’s not going to drive a cab.

“I know what he’s not going to do, I just don’t know yet what he is going to do.”

It had previously been assumed that the forthcoming Rebus novel, to be published next autumn, would be the character’s final appearance, as by then he would be 60, the mandatory retirement age in Lothian and Borders Police.

Clues to the final fate of Rebus did not look promising after Rankin admitted to quizzing Colin Dexter, the author of the Inspector Morse mysteries, on his reasons for killing off the beloved character. Rumours circulated that Rebus might consummate his secret passion for his partner, Detective Sergeant Siobhan Clarke, only to be gunned down by his arch-enemy, the Edinburgh crime boss Morris Cafferty.

Yet in an interview with The Scotsman, Rankin revealed that his character’s ability to crack a case would not disappear into the inky black of a grave or in the tedium of retirement. Instead, the roles may be reversed, with Rebus becoming the sidekick and Det. Sgt. Clarke stepping into the spotlight.

The author explained: “I’d like to try to write a novel with Siobhan as the main character, but out of necessity Rebus would play a role.”

The reopening of an unsolved case from a previous decade, he says, would provide an easy vehicle for a retired Detective Inspector to return to the fray. In the first draft of his first detective novel, Rankin killed off the character of Rebus, only to resurrect him in the second draft. It was to prove a smart and lucrative move.

More on detective Rebus and his thoughtful creator can be found in a second Scotsman article.

(Hat tip to Euro Crime.)

“Eyes” in Reprise

I wasn’t a big fan of Eyes, the 2005 ABC-TV mid-season replacement series about a high-priced, high-tech, and certainly high-strung private investigations firm “functioning on the fringes of the law,” as The Seattle Times put it. Which was odd, because I usually go for P.I. shows, even when they’re of marginal dramatic quality. And I like actor Tim Daly (formerly of Wings and The Fugitive), who played Harlan Judd, the president of Judd Risk Management. Yet I recall seeing only one or two of the five episodes that were broadcast before ABC suddenly yanked Eyes from its Wednesday night schedule (despite a well-publicized campaign to save the show).

Still, I am happy to read in TV Squad that eight episodes of the series are now available online at AOL’s In2TV--“that’s three new episodes for those of you keeping track,” explains TV Squader Anna Johns. Original fans of the series (which also starred Garcelle Beauvais-Nilon, Laura Leighton, and Rick Worthy) can now see plot lines wrapped up a bit more, and the rest of us can give Eyes another look. American TV networks are so obsessed with profit these days, and so fearful that they will make the wrong programming decisions, that they’re willing to pull promising shows even before audiences have had a chance to find them, much less bond with them. So the Web, which is already hosting repeats of new shows and myriad clips from vintage ones, provides an ideal vehicle for resurrecting series that weren’t given a reasonable chance the first time around.

Maybe after Eyes and the other current In2TV “gone but not forgotten” series (including The George Carlin Show and the Rhea Perlman-Malcolm McDowell comedy, Pearl) have been up for a while, the site could resurrect such regrettably short-shrifted TV efforts as Banyon, Jigsaw, Leg Work, The Magician, Archer, Ellery Queen, City of Angels, and The Snoop Sisters.

The Lady Killers

Anyone who’s ever attended a crime-fiction convention can tell you that women make up the largest segment of attendees. “Initially, I believed that it wasn’t that women were greater crime addicts than men, just that they were more likely to want a book signed or felt less inhibited about discussing what I had written,” remarks British journalist-turned-novelist Alexander McGregor (Lawless) in The Scotsman. “But when I recently enrolled in a college evening criminology course I discovered I was the only male in the class.”

McGregor goes on to observe, with some astonishment, that

Not only do women dominate book-signing queues by some margin; most also have expert insights into life-extinguishing techniques and are eager to discuss the forensic lapses which have trapped killers. Mild-mannered mothers can recite with ease why they believe Ted Bundy escaped capture for so long, or the basic errors that helped convict the likes of Moors murderers Ian Brady and Myra Hindley. And they’re not just reading books. The same women admit that they cannot get enough of television programmes about crime, whether true or fictional.

Why this fascination for crime and punishment among the distaff set? McGregor quotes novelist Natasha Cooper (née Daphne Wright, author of Evil Is Done), who he says “believes the shift in female reading habits may just be part of the continuing process of women breaking free of their stereotyping, much like the growing success of women who write about crime. ‘Crime fiction provides a wonderful outlet for all the unacceptably violent impulses we are not otherwise allowed to express,’ she says. ‘We are allowed to be miserable or ill but still not allowed to be angry.’”

Read the whole Scotsman essay here.

Dyer Straights

“In Dyer County, Nevada, FBI Special Agent Mike Yeager is running from the tragic results of a child-kidnapping case he recently mishandled back in Philadelphia,” writes David Thayer in his new January Magazine review of The Shadow Catchers, a novel by Thomas Lakeman. “He thinks a trip to southern Nevada to photograph the Sangre de los Niños Mountains at sunset might help him forget that investigation as well as the woman--fellow agent Peggy Weaver--he left behind. But Yeager has chosen a harsh environment in which to rekindle his spirit.” And there’s little chance of his finding peace out West, as his pursuit of a missing girl makes him a murder suspect and unearths events from the past that locals are most eager to keep buried. Thayer concludes, “This is an impressive debut novel from a writer with a great deal to add to the crime-fiction canon.”

Read the whole review here.

Good Ideas Get Around

Authors often find themselves unintentionally writing about the same subject, even though their topic might have seemed pretty obscure at the time they began. Another such coincidence is found now in the penning of stories based on the mysterious 1949 disappearance of aspiring Hollywood actress Jean Spangler (pictured below). As The Rap Sheet has noted before (see here and here), New York novelist Megan Abbott, the author of 2005’s Die a Little, is due out in January with The Song Is You, a pulpish and atmospheric fictionalization of the Spangler case that made my list of the winter books I most look forward to reading.

Earlier today, however, Los Angeles journalist-novelist Denise Hamilton (Prisoner of Memory, Savage Garden) wrote to tell me that she was “surprised to learn” about Abbott’s forthcoming book, “because I thought I was the only author who had stumbled across Jean’s tragic life and seized upon it as a haunting topic for a noir crime novel.” In that e-mail note, Hamilton goes on to remark:

Perhaps the more intriguing issue, however, is not why two crime authors have recently discovered Jean Spangler but why the story about her disappearance, two years after the Black Dahlia [murder], has languished in obscurity for so long when it has all the elements of a spellbinding novel.

Consider the characters and their relationships: Pretty starlet, violent ex-husband fighting a custody battle for their only child, known association with gangsters who also disappeared, references to a mysterious “Kirk” when Jean had filmed a movie with Kirk Douglas, lack of a body but discovery of a broken purse with a cryptic note found inside.

Set these characters in play against 1949 Hollywood--which featured gangster shoot-outs on the Sunset Strip, the mob war between Mickey Cohen and Jack Dragna for control of L.A.’s turf, crooked cops (both the LAPD chief and his deputy
were indicted that summer) the decline of the studio star system, the dawn of television, the post-WWII recession, the Hollywood Blacklist, the Cold War, the rise of lurid tabloids like Confidential, the incipient conservatism of the 1950s after women left the wartime factories and returned to the home, high-stakes homophobia in Hollywood, the rise of suburbia, the Golden Era of movie special effects--and you’ve got a fantastic canvass to paint on.

My first five novels are set in a noir-accented but very contemporary and multicultural Los Angeles. When [publisher] Scribner approached me in 2005 about writing my first standalone, we discussed my fascination with L.A. and what a noir place I think it is--as much today as during the glory noir years.

But that got me thinking. Authors like James M. Cain, Nathanael West, Ross Macdonald, Raymond Chandler, Walter Mosley, Dashiell Hammett, Dorothy B. Hughes and Chester Himes have been touchstones for me. So I thought I’d go back to the source, the era they wrote about, just sift through the sand and see what I came up with. On top of that, I’m an L.A. native and a former L.A. Times reporter. The city’s iconography runs through my veins (ouch!) and I see L.A. as a character in its own right. I was especially intrigued by the idea that Hollywood was a small town 50 years ago and movie stars were part of the landscape. You’d see them buying toothpaste at the drugstore, memorizing their scripts at the coffee shop. You could sit in on Steve Allen’s midnight radio show, watch Frank Sinatra record. The access was amazing.

Thanks to a story by L.A. Times staff writer Cecilia Rasmussen, who writes the great “L.A Then and Now” column, I came across Jean’s story and was immediately entranced. I was also shocked that no one had written about her before.

But maybe it’s the O.J. syndrome. More than a dozen women in Los Angeles were killed by domestic violence during the years that Simpson’s trials dragged on. But you only ever read about Nicole. Finally one day, the Times ran a round-up story about some of the others. I think that the Black Dahlia case loomed so large on people’s minds for so many decades that it obscured many of the era’s other tragic crimes. It was almost like there was only room for one such tragedy in the public consciousness, and Elizabeth Short’s mythology had already claimed the turf.

Then of course, Spangler’s body was never found, dangling the seductive possibility that she wasn’t dead after all, but had absconded to Mexico or New York, perhaps with “Little Davy” Ogul and Frank Niccoli, Mickey Cohen’s associates who also disappeared that fall. Jean had been seen partying in Palm Springs with these gangsters shortly before she disappeared. Had she fallen afoul of a gang war? Was it her violent ex-husband? Or was it more complicated?

Oddly enough, both Megan and I are published by the same umbrella house--she’s at Simon & Schuster and I’m at Scribner, which is owned by S&S. (We were also both Edgar finalists for our first books.) But my editor at Scribner didn’t know about Megan’s book until I e-mailed her after reading your column. And I doubt very much that Megan’s editor knew about my book. I don’t submit an outline or a plot synopsis when I sign a new publishing contract, my editor and I just have an informal chat.

But I do think that our converging novels are an example of the Zeitgeist at work. The adaptation of the James Ellroy [novel] The Black Dahlia also came out this fall, as did Hollywoodland, another noiry period movie. Those films aspired to the greatness of the movie L.A. Confidential, based on another Ellroy novel, but didn’t quite succeed. Perhaps that’s because writers of all stripes need to infuse this familiar 1940s world with fresh, ahem, blood if they intend to captivate new audiences. We want prose that is both new/different AND projects the reassuringly familiar miasma of that smoky boozy shadowy world.

That’s why I say that my 1949 novel--which doesn’t yet have a title--is “inspired” by Jean Spangler’s life. Jean’s story ended inconclusively, never a satisfying finale for a crime novel. As I explored the themes of her life, I wanted to find out who did it and why, and how that played out against that pivotal time in L.A. history. So my novel’s got a body and plenty of motives. Perhaps you might call it “Expressionist” as opposed to “Impressionist” in tone. My starlet is from the Midwest but she’s never been married and doesn’t have a child. She lives in a Hollywood boarding house for aspiring young actresses--a common practice at the time--which allows me to give her a supporting cast (sometimes friendly, sometimes jealous and competitive), plus an enigmatic landlady.

The sleuth I’ve created is a young woman with an OSS [Office of Strategic Services] wartime background who returns to her hometown of Los Angeles to look into the actress’ disappearance at the request of the missing girl’s mother. She moves into the boarding house and becomes embroiled in the dead girl’s life, especially her connections to Hollywood. But so much has been written about the Dream Factory that I also knew I had to approach it from an oblique angle. So I created a special-effects wizard inspired by Ray Harryhausen, who with his mentor Willis O’Brien pioneered stop-motion animation. Harryhausen is 86 now and I had the privilege of meeting him and talking to him about what the special-effects world was like in 1949, the year Mighty Joe Young came out. (He did 90% of the animation on MJY; O’Brien had animated King Kong). This was wonderful background and local color to weave into a book. Through him, I’ve been able to tell the history of Hollywood special effects long before Stephen Spielberg and George Lucas made it hip and trendy. My guy’s a hardcore geek, shunned by starlets, but bearing a torch for the missing actress. We’re behind the scenes a lot, which is a place I like to be.

Jean Spangler was the embodiment, the crystallization of so many things that I find fascinating about L.A. at the time--and her very desires and dreams made her vulnerable. She yearned to be an independent modern young woman during a time when society was lurching back toward more traditional roles. She wanted fame badly and was hustling to get there, even though she knew how tough the odds were. And she disappeared into thin air, creating the perfect template. But behind the newspaper headlines there was also a real flesh-and-blood girl and that’s what I think haunts me most. As authors, we like to ask “what if?” We imagine ourselves in people’s shoes, set a train of events into motion and see what happens. I wanted to explore Jean’s story, set against the transitory and yet pivotal year of 1949 in L.A.’s history.

I’ll be turning in my novel at the end of December 2006, so it certainly won’t be jostling the bookshelves at the same time as Megan’s book. Besides, I’m sure they’ll be very different takes on a 53-year-old, mostly forgotten crime. But young women still disappear in L.A. Which makes it both an archetypal and a cautionary tale. Sometimes time changes nothing.

I, for one, look forward to reading both Abbott’s The Song Is You and Hamilton’s novel, whenever it’s released.

A Done Diehl

William Diehl, the onetime Georgia journalist and photographer who, at age 50, decided to stop wasting his life and become a novelist, died on Friday at Emory University Hospital in Atlanta. He was 81.

Most people probably remember Diehl for his 1978 debut novel, Sharky’s Machine, or perhaps for 1992’s Primal Fear, which was later made into a movie starring Richard Gere and Edward Norton. But when I think of Diehl, what comes to mind is his last novel published during his lifetime, a period thriller called Eureka (2002). As I wrote in my review for Amazon.com, Eureka offered lots of menace but little true violence. Nonetheless, it was “a polished work,” the story of “Zeke Bannon, a young L.A. cop whose probing into the murder of a mysterious widow--electrocuted in her own bathtub--leads him to the once-sinful town of Eureka, now called San Pietro. It’s from there that [the widow had] been receiving anonymous cashier’s checks over the last two decades, money Bannon figures she earned by her silence. Was she helping to cover up the truth about a 1921 shootout that caused the death of Eureka’s frontier-style sheriff? Nobody in modern San Pietro will talk, least of all Thomas ‘Brodie’ Culhane, a World War I hero who cleaned up the town and is now running for governor of California. Torn between admiring Culhane and trying to link him to the widow’s killing, Bannon ignites historical enmities that threaten to express both men to their graves.” With solidly developed characters and an unexpected conclusion, Eureka showed the work of an accomplished hand.

As The Washington Post noted earlier today, “Diehl was writing his 10th novel at the time of his death. It was expected to be published sometime next year, his friends said.” Let’s hope his publisher follows through with that plan.

(Hat tip to Bill Crider.)

They Like These, They Really Like These

Well, it’s already begun, that annual ritual of critics selecting their favorite books published during the preceding 12 months. Australia’s Adelaide Advertiser broke the ice, choosing eight crime titles among its 100 top reads of the year. The New York Times weighs in its own blockbuster list of 100 “notable books,” including Julian Barnes’ Arthur and George, Stephen King’s Lisey’s Story, and Kate Atkinson’s One Good Turn. Meanwhile, the London Observer invited a “gallery of the great and good” to identify the titles that moved them most in ’06, a roster that features several crime-related works: Ian Rankin’s The Naming of the Dead, Maggie O’Farrell’s The Vanishing Act of Esme Lennox, John Updike’s Terrorist, and John Grisham’s The Innocent Man. (See here and here for all the Observer’s choices.) In that paper’s sister pub, The Guardian, more wordsmiths let their prejudices be known, though their list turns out to be painfully short of crime and mystery fiction.

Say What?

The ever-nostalgic American cable channel TV Land is planning a weeklong celebration of television’s 100 greatest “quotes and catchphrases,” December 11 to 15. Included among the memorable utterances are the Robot’s frequent admonition from Lost in Space (“Danger, Will Robinson!”), attorney Joseph Welch’s history-making rebuke to Red-baiting Republican Senator Joseph McCarthy (“Have you no sense of decency, sir?”), Jackie Gleason’s signature line (“How sweet it is!”), and the once-ubiquitous catchphrase used in commercials for the Wendy’s fast-food chain (“Where’s the beef?”).

However, a few familiar phrases from crime-fiction shows (or series that arguably belong within this genre) also make TV Land’s cut:

• “Book ’em, Danno.” (Steve McGarrett, Hawaii Five-O)

• “Just one more thing ... (Lieutenant Columbo, Columbo)

• “The truth is out there.” (Fox Mulder, The X-Files)

• “Who loves you, baby?” (Lieutenant Theo Kojak, Kojak)

• “Let’s be careful out there.” (Sergeant Philip Freemason Esterhaus, Hill Street Blues)

• “Would you believe?” (Maxwell Smart, Get Smart)

• “This is the city ...” (Sergeant Joe Friday, Dragnet)

Even before the TV Land specials air, you can find its whole list of quotable quotes here.

READ MORE: “The Great Quotes TV Land Missed,” by Ken Levine.

Bond at the Source

So I return home from a pleasant family Thanksgiving celebration in Portland, Oregon, and what do I find? Still more James Bond-related stories! Sheesh! I thought the onslaught was over. But apparently not. Critics at both Salon and Britain’s The Guardian eschew the new film, Casino Royale, in favor of re-reading and analyzing the Ian Fleming novels that gave birth to Agent 007.

Salon contributor Allen Barra (Inventing Wyatt Earp) takes a more comprehensive approach, looking back at the Bond series in its entirety. “The reasons why Fleming became such a cult favorite aren’t easily discerned by those who want obvious ‘literary’ quality in their thrillers,” Barra opines. “He couldn’t begin to write dialogue as pungent as that of his friend and early supporter, Raymond Chandler, the darling of Brit critics; as Kingsley Amis wrote in his slim 1965 book, ‘The James Bond Dossier,’ Fleming’s ‘dialogue is serviceable and nothing more.’ (Then again, Fleming had many more diverse characters to write dialogue for than did Chandler.) He doesn’t begin to convey a sense of mise-en-scène as well as, say, Dashiell Hammett. (But then Fleming had far more diverse scenes to set than did Hammett.) ... Fleming’s genius, if it’s proper to apply the word to a writer of genre fiction, was to create a world of espionage more grotesque and dangerous than the actual one while maintaining close enough ties to reality to make it all seem credible. To my surprise, he rewarded not only careful reading but rereading.”

(Try to set aside the insult that Barra doubts the potential of genius in genre fiction, and appreciate the Salon piece for what is it: a primer on Bond that will stimulate readers to check out the series for themselves, or feel there’s no need, since Barra has done so wonderfully in boiling down the essential points to be made about Fleming’s spy novels.)

Meanwhile, Nicholas Lezard reconsiders the book Casino Royale (1953), recently reissued in paperback by Penguin to coincide with the film’s worldwide release. “You may wonder why anyone should be reading Bond novels nowadays, or why I should be recommending one of them,” Lezard writes. “After all, the films, however enjoyable, are rubbish. And weren’t the novels themselves denounced, even as they were appearing, as ‘sex, snobbery and sadism’ by (of all people) Paul Johnson in the New Statesman?” However, he concludes,

You should also read [Casino Royale] because, without doing so, you will never have a complete picture of the imaginative postwar life of this country [England]. It is odd to think that people watching the coronation of Queen Elizabeth II could take a break by reading the newly published hardback edition of this book. When [Philip] Larkin said that sexual intercourse began in 1963, you may think that he was exactly a decade out. And in his hugely enjoyable study of Bond, The Man Who Saved Britain, Simon Winder points out that the key moment in the novel is when Bond orders an avocado pear (“with french dressing”) for dessert. We forget how exotic and desirable the avocado was in 1953; and how hard it was to take money out of the country. When Bond is gambling with thousands of pounds at the baccarat table, British readers must have been boggle-eyed with envy.

(Hat tip to Euro Crime.)

READ MORE: “Is James Bond a Misogynist?” by Marshal Zeringue
(Spot-On).

From the Technical Department

As The Rap Sheet has grown, I’ve noticed occasional failures in Blogger’s ability to search down older subject references. Therefore, I am adding a new FreeFind search box in the right-hand column, just above the extensive Crime Fiction Links section. I hope this will improve readers’ ability to locate material across the site’s archives.

Reasons to Give Thanks, 2006

This is Thanksgiving Day in the United States. Dating back to the 18th century, it’s traditionally a celebration of the end of the harvest season. However, the holiday is now synonymous with parade floats, football games, and turkey dinners large enough to put you into a coma. Oh, and one of the things folks tend to do between bites of potato and dressing is list off what they’ve been most grateful for recently.

Seeing as how this is the first Thanksgiving for The Rap Sheet as a blog, I’ve been musing all week long about crime-fiction-related things to be thankful for this year. And while the cynic in me wants simply to express my appreciation for the fact that Casino Royale has finally debuted, and the flood of James Bond-related news stories and features has dwindled to a trickle, I think I can do better than that. Try, instead, these causes for appreciation:

• TV of Your Life. My recent post about the Jimmy Stewart TV drama, Hawkins (1973-1974), in which the actor played a deceptively sharp criminal attorney from West Virginia, left me frustrated. Hawkins is one of those admirable old shows that seem never to reach DVD, even as forgettable crap like The A-Team, The Dukes of Hazzard, and Married ... with Children rolls onto store shelves with commercial abandon. So I was thrilled to discover that Hawkins--like many other more obscure series--hasn’t been lost forever. TV of Your Life is a Web site “dedicated to the preservation of classic television from the 1950s-1990s.” Along with supplying info about old “sitcoms, westerns, game shows, music and variety, soap operas, drama[s], [and] Saturday morning shows,” the site also offers a well-trafficked message board where people looking for episodes of old TV series can be hooked up with folks who happen to have videotaped those programs. Purchases may be made either with cash (usually pretty small amounts) or an exchange of blank videocassettes for those filled with the desired shows. I have managed before to find episodes of Hec Ramsey and the underappreciated Wayne Rogers period private-eye drama, City of Angels, through TV of Your Life. And it came through once again with Hawkins: I now own the pilot film and three other of the seven regular episodes shot. Next on my want list: Switch, the 1975-1978 Robert Wagner/Eddie Albert series in which they played an ex-con man and an ex-cop, respectively, whose specialty was conning con artists and crooks. TV of Your Life says that 23 episodes are known to exist on videotape. I’m thinking Christmas presents for yours truly ...

• Private eye comebacks. It’s hard to see characters you know and love disappear. Therefore, it was good to hear earlier this year that Tom Nolan, the Los Angeles critic (and occasional January Magazine contributor) who wrote Ross Macdonald: A Biography (1999), is readying a new collection of stories featuring Macdonald’s long out-of-commission P.I., Lew Archer, for Crippen & Landru. Called The Archer Files, the book is supposed to feature all of the Archer short stories, “plus a wealth of fragments about Lew Archer--unfinished stories, opening scenes, etc.” There’s no official publication date yet, and Amazon.com doesn’t even list this book; but the fact that there’s a cover designed already (see image at left) leads me to think that The Archer Files’ release can’t be too far in the future. And speaking of comebacks, Max Allan Collins let us know earlier this month that, after readying one posthumous Mickey Spillane standalone novel for Hard Case Crime, Dead Street (due out in November 2007), he’s prepared to finish up two Mike Hammer novels that “the Mick” left behind when he died in July, King of the Weeds and The Goliath Bone. Let’s hope that Hard Case or some other conscientious publishing house picks up those 19th and 20th Hammer books.

• Hard Case Crime. While we’re on the subject, Hard Case and its creators, Charles Ardai and Max Phillips, are worth giving thanks for, as well. The press has only been turning out pulpish paperback crime novels since the fall of 2004, but already its original titles have picked up Edgar and Shamus awards, and Time magazine just last month applauded Ardai for his innovation and success, both at attracting confirmed talents (such as Madison Smartt Bell and Stephen King) to his stable and “rediscover[ing] long-lost novels by past masters” such as David Dodge, Donald Westlake, and Ed McBain. And let us not forget to add more cheers for Hard Case’s use of cover artists such as Robert McGinnis, Glen Orbik, and Gregory Manchess. Even if we were skeptical about what’s inside, we’d probably still buy Hard Case books for their moody, suggestive, and sometimes downright smokin’ jackets.

• James Ellroy as inspiration. It was our pleasure not long ago to host the great James Ellroy as a “guest blogger” (see here, here, here, and here). Although other blogs have invited “outsiders” into the editorial mix for short periods, Ellroy was our test case. And we think everyone had a good time. So we are hoping to try out some more guest bloggers over the next 12 months, both authors and critics. Someone suggested O.J. Simpson, now that his multimedia approach to a sorta confession has tanked. But no thanks.

• Anne Hathaway as “99.” Following the death of actor Don Adams just over a year ago, I wasn’t thrilled to hear that a new movie version of the 1965-1970 TV spy spoof Get Smart was in the works--especially since there was no mention of either Mel Brooks or Buck Henry, who created and wrote the original show, being involved. (Both men are still alive, and you’d think that anyone hoping to tap into the delightful lunacy of their concept--or the show’s aging-yuppie audience--would at least make a bow toward Brooks and Henry, if not give them script-supervision rights. But nooo ...) I was even less enthusiastic when I heard that comic Steve Carrell--whose series, The Office, I find incredibly dull--was slated to fill the famous “phone shoes” of Maxwell Smart, CONTROL Agent 86. But the recent news that fetching 24-year-old actress Anne Hathaway is going to step in as Agent 99, the role originated by Barbara Feldon, gives me hope for this film. After appearing in such too-cute Disney flicks as The Princess Diaries and Ella Enchanted, Hathaway’s willingness to seek out edgier roles in Brokeback Mountain and Havoc (both of which found her appearing topless--a fact that caused Disney to terminate her contract) makes me think she can carry Get Smart past Carrell’s over-the-top performances. Production is set to begin in March.

• The Rap Sheet is still around! We’ve just completed a whole six months of blogging, and--with more than half a dozen contributors on tap now--there’s seemingly nothing to stop us from continuing to regale you with news, commentary, and seasonal book choices. For sticking around to see The Rap Sheet grow, let us give you--our readers--the thanks you deserve.

If you have your own reasons to be thankful this year, let us know about them in the Comments section.

Yeaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah!

It just goes to show that some people have waayyy too much time on their hands. Nonetheless, whoever came up with this collection of lead-in lines delivered by CSI: Miami protagonist Horatio Caine (David Caruso) should be commended. Although TV Squad’s Anna Jones says these one-liners, dispensed immediately prior to the series’ opening credits (and its theme song), give her “the creeps,” I think this seven-minute collection of such quotes is positively hilarious. Of course, that’s exactly the opposite of the ominousness that the CSI folks are trying to convey with Caine’s quips.

By the way,” notes Jones in her own intro to this YouTube collection, “you don’t need to watch the whole seven minutes to understand that Horatio Caine is the master of the ellipsis (...). And, he uses his sunglasses as a prop way too much.” Boy, ain’t that the truth ...

It Isn’t Only the Bird That’s Dead

Since we offered up links to lists of Halloween-related mysteries last month, let’s follow that up now with a couple of Internet pages where you can find the names and authors of Thanksgiving-related crime fiction. Anyone for Turkey Day Murder or Celt and Pepper? Click here and here to find out more.

Solo No More at 74

I was too young to appreciate The Man from U.N.C.L.E. (1964-1968) when it was first broadcast, but I’ve since come to enjoy the work of Robert Vaughn, who of course played spy Napoleon Solo in U.N.C.L.E. Just the other night, I was watching one of his two appearances in Columbo (the 1976 episode “Last Salute to the Commodore”). But it wasn’t until I checked out his credits at the International Movie Database that I understood just how prolific Vaughn has been.

Prior to U.N.C.L.E., he did turns in Gunsmoke and The Rifleman, and since 1970 he’s taken parts in everything from The Towering Inferno (1974) and Superman III (1983), to Hawaii Five-O, The A-Team, Murder, She Wrote, Diagnosis: Murder, The Magnificent Seven, and Law & Order: Special Victims Unit. He’s portrayed two American presidents (Woodrow Wilson in 1979’s Backstairs at the White House and Franklin D. Roosevelt in the 1986 teleflick Murrow), and co-starred in two series since U.N.C.L.E. said “uncle”: The Protectors (1972-1973) and, most recently, Hustle, which returns for its fourth season next year.

So let me join author-blogger Bill Crider in wishing Robert Vaughn a very happy 74th birthday today.

AN INTERESTING FACTOID: Wikipedia reports that Vaughn holds not only a Master’s degree in theater from Los Angeles City College, but “a Ph.D. in communications from the University of Southern California,” and he “published his [doctoral] dissertation as the book Only Victims: A Study of Show Business Blacklisting in 1972.”

Better Get Cracking

It’s been my experience that most people (even journalists) who decide to become novelists don’t understand the magnitude of their dream. They don’t know how little they know about the process of novel-writing, or the frustrations that come with it. Or the commitment necessary to turn good idea into a saleable book.

But Elmore Leonard knows it all well, and he offers these insights on his Web site:

John D. MacDonald said that you had to write a million words before you really knew what you were doing. A million words is ten years. By that time you should have a definite idea of what you want your writing to sound like. That’s the main thing. I don’t think many writers today begin with that goal: to write a certain way that has a definite sound to it.

(Hat tip to Campaign for the American Reader.)

Robicheaux and Rebels

According to Cinematical, James Lee Burke’s 1993 novel, In the Electric Mist with Confederate Dead--the sixth outing for Louisiana cop-turned-P.I. Dave Robicheaux--is going to be made into a movie. Writes contributor Chris Ullrich:

The film, which is being directed by French filmmaker Bertrand Tavernier, of Round Midnight and the recent Holy Lola, centers on Cajun detective Dave Robicheaux who is tracking the murderer of a local hooker and [trying to] tie the crime to New Orleans mobster Julie Balboni who is in town producing a Civil War epic. Convinced that Balboni is guilty of the hooker’s murder and also may be responsible for a string of serial-killer-like other slayings, Robicheaux goes outside the law to nail him.

This will be the second of Burke’s Robicheaux novels to be adapted by Hollywood. The previous result was Heaven’s Prisoners, a 1996 production that asked us to swallow Alec Baldwin with a Southern accent in the lead role (I, for one, could not), and really didn’t make much of an impression ... except for Teri Hatcher’s all-too-brief nude appearance on a balcony.

Let’s hope for more worth watching in Electric Mist.

Tough Guy Makes Good

Ray Winstone, the 49-year-old actor who plays private eye Vincent Gallagher in the popular British TV series Vincent (currently showing in the States on BBC America) has received the 2006 Emmy Award for Best Performance by an Actor from the International Academy of Television Arts & Sciences. This Emmy was given Winstone specifically for his work on Vincent.

(Hat tip to Euro Crime.)

But Only One Book? Horrors!

Following his recent visit to the UK, author Stephen King (Lisey’s Story) is not set to be interviewed this Friday on the BBC Radio 4 program Desert Island Discs. Created by Roy Plomley way back in 1942, Desert Island Discs remains one of Radio 4’s most popular and enduring shows. The format is simple: each week a guest is asked by presenter Kirsty Young to choose the eight records, and one book, that he or she would most want to take with them to a desert island.

Due to copyright reasons, this program (unlike most of what BBC Radio has to offer) is not made available later in the archive, for people who don’t catch it the first time ’round. But you can listen to Desert Island Discs live on the Internet at 0900 hrs. GMT on Friday, November 24, and again at 1115 hrs. GMT on Sunday, November 26. Click here for the BBC Radio player.

More details on the show are available here, including a rundown on King’s musical favorites.

Previous mystery and thriller writers who’ve appeared on Desert Island Discs, and whose music selections are still available on the BBC Web site, include Jack Higgins, Alexander McCall Smith, Ian Rankin, Paulo Coelho, P.D. James, and Minette Walters.